The Watching Rose - Paused
by Kaiimei
Summary: Ruby Rose. At 15, the youngest ever to attend a Huntsman Academy. Filled with such hope about saving the day, she was not ready for reality to so viciously steal her team. After returning to Beacon alone, she devotes herself to trying to keep as many students alive and together as she possibly can, and hopes to save as many as she can from her own pain.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi there everyone! This is going to be my first serious attempt at a long-term story. It's inevitably going to be absolutely awful and make you tear your hair out, but please, enjoy! Don't expect detailed fights or anything like that, most fights are going to be abbreviated fights that already happened in Canon and used mostly to just further conflicts. Reason being twofold. Firstly, I don't trust myself to not absolutely butcher fight scenes, maybe later on in this I'll write out a few longer scenes and see how that goes, but for now, short fights that aren't very well described.**

**Secondly, and more importantly, I don't want this to be a fighting fanfiction. While there will be a few fights, they'll usually only be a paragraph or two long and not really talk about the actual fighting, so consider that your warning if you were hoping to hear a super-detailed account of Ruby butchering her way through Grimm. I want it to focus more on Ruby teaching team RWBY, JNPR, and maybe a little bit of karmic justice for CRDL alongside some wise words of wisdom.**

**FAIR WARNING: This is going to be a pretty brutal first chapter. If a moderately detailed description of death isn't your cup of tea, I'd recommend you avert your eyes.**

**Oh, also...**

_**OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I don't own RWBY. RWBY is owned by Rooster**__** Teeth**_

_**Prologue**_

* * *

Ruby Rose.

A rather quaint name, and not one many would attribute to a rather skilled huntress. Then again, the same was always said about her mother, Summer Rose. At 15 years old, Ruby managed to catch the eyes of one Headmaster Ozpin during a dust robbery, in which she subdued at least 5 armed men non-lethally and without major damage to anything other than a single window.

Because of this, Ozpin saw fit to enter Ruby into his school, Beacon Academy, 2 years ahead of any regular student, leaving her isolated amongst her peers as a child, and causing no small amount of strife upon her arrival.

Of course, this all changed during the initiation, during which Ruby resolved to prove herself to everyone, and above all prove that Ozpin was right to let her into his school early, and that he definitely shouldn't send her back to Signal. And prove herself she did. Using her beloved Scythe, Crescent Rose, she cleft her way through the Grimm in the Emerald Forest, meeting up with another applicant, Olive, and making their way to the "ruins" to retrieve "relics", as Ozpin so vaguely put it.

Upon reaching the aforementioned ruins and seeing only chess pieces dotted around on pedestals, Ruby decides to simply pick one at random, not sparing a moment to think about which to take. Upon grabbing the relic, another pair arrive at the ruins, and after brief introductions, they take their own relic, matching the one in Ruby's hand.

Thus, team ROVR (Rover) was formed, made up of Ruby, our lovable heroine, Olive, the shy support, Violet, the slightly nuts brawler, and Roux, the brave skirmisher. Together, these 4 girls tore their way through the 4 years they spent together in Beacon, absolutely obliterating any Grimm that fell upon their path in missions, and happily integrating themselves as a much beloved team within Beacon and Vale as a whole.

Those 4 lazy years seemed to just blitz past team ROVR, and somewhere in the mix of killing Grimm, saving grateful townspeople and eating their way through batches of cookies, the team found themselves graduating Beacon almost too soon. Of course, they still had each other, but suddenly being faced with the unfamiliarity of not having Beacon to return to was a very jarring experience for the girls, but one they got over swiftly.

Upon leaving Beacon, ROVR spent the next year simply doing what Huntresses do best, and what they had already been doing for so long, saving people with a smile.

But, of course, reality rarely stays this agreeable, as Ruby found to her horror during one ill-fated mission.

* * *

"So Ruby, what are we even doing out here? Seriously, all that's here are rocks, dirt and trees."

"Seriously Violet, do you think so little of me" Rolling her eyes, Ruby spins on her heel and walks backwards, "that you think I'd drag us across Sanus for absolutely no reason other than to go camping?"

Violet sticks her tongue out, only to jump as Roux leaps onto her back.

"Onwards noble steed! To victory or Sovngard!"

Sighing, Violet jumps, throwing Roux straight over her shoulders and right into her arms.

"Seriously guys" Ruby looks back at them, face twisted into a grimace, "Can you at least keep it to the bedroom?"

"Nope!" Both Violet and Roux look over at Ruby completely unabashed.

"Guys, I really think we should be a bit more careful." Olive digs the tip of her shoe into the dirt while staring at her teammates. "You can leech off each others faces when we actually get to a town."

"Aww, Olive, are you jealous of us?" Violet starts nudging Roux and giggling, "I think she's jealous of us."

Blushing furiously, Olive glances towards Ruby for a split-second before averting her gaze, suddenly finding her shoes to be the most interesting thing in the world.

"N-No! Why would I be J-Jealous of you two? It's not like I want anything like that, it sounds disgusting!"

Despite her fervent protests, it's pretty clear to all three other girls both her embarrassment and her attraction towards their leader.

"Ok guys, let's stop playing 'Who can embarrass Olive the most' and get back on task. Now, to answer your original question Vi, we are out here to see whether there's any truth to the rumors of some new Grimm in this area. According to the locals from the nearby town of Grimmsbane, there's been some disturbing reports of strange scuttling noises and acidic corrosion around the base of the walls, yet despite their best efforts, they can neither identify what's causing the sounds and damage, nor can they attribute the damage to any known Grimm acid attacks."

"Ergo?" Violet tilts her head in confusion. "Why would they send US out here? I mean, we aren't exactly investigative material. Take you for example. Your greatest skill is slicing things apart with your scythe. Mine is punching things so hard they turn inside out, Olive just sits back and uses her semblance and rifle, and Roux runs circles around them and slashing about with daggers. None of that screams 'Grimm investigators' to me."

Ruby scratches her head, "Yeah, but in that same vein, we're all really good at combat. Any of us could probably hold our own against an average Goliath alone, and together we're probably strong enough to take almost any ancient Grimm in a 4v1. So if this new Grimm is so dangerous, who better to send after it?"

"I guess...but how are we gonna find it? Like they said, it's not exactly som-"

Before Violet could finish her sentence, the air is filled with the most blood-curdling wail the girls had ever heard. It was like a crescendo of hatred and pain, a symphony of promised pain and death.

Bursting out of the undergrowth, a horde of Beowolves flooded from the trees into the stunned Huntresses.

Violet recovered first, smashing her gauntlets together and bracing herself against the charge.

"Come on fur-balls! Come to Mama Violet!"

Soon all 4 girls were back to back, covering each others backs and carving up any Grimm that dared attack.

Being young and full of aggression, the Grimm threw themselves into the slaughter, with barely any concern shown towards life or limb, only the mindless frenzy of the battle.

The battle, however, was short-lived, as not 5 minutes after the attack had begun, a loud howling was heard, and, aside from a few of the more aggressive Beowolves, the majority fled back to the tree-line, leaving the girls to clean up the remaining Grimm.

"Well," Ruby panted and embedded her scythe into the dispersing corpse of one of the new Alpha Beowolves that attacked the group, "that was interesting. Anyone ever see Grimm retreat before?"

"Well, Grimm commonly retreat...FROM MY AWESOMENESS!" Violet proudly boasted, before receiving a smack on her head from Roux. "Ow Roux, my feelings!"

"Thank you Roux. Now Violet, this is serious." Ruby put on her best serious face, "Have any of you ever seen Grimm, GRIMM, retreat before?"

"Oh." Was all Violet could manage as she realized the severity of what just happened.

"Yes, exactly. Now, that howl at the end sounded normal, but there must have been something else, since the only other time I've seen Grimm 'retreat' is when other prey is around, and there shouldn't be anyone within a good few kilometers."

Glancing around, Ruby notices that her team is actually rather tired from the sudden melee, especially after several days of hard trekking through wilderness.

"Ok, so what now boss?" Ever the voice of reason, Roux quickly brings Ruby's attention back to the matter at hand. "I mean, should we try to track those Grimm, find out what caused that noise?"

"Not right now. If we get into a protracted fight, we'd probably get worn down." Before any argument could be raised, Ruby quickly adds, "Look at us right now. After a few days of hard hiking, we're all quite tired. We should find somewhere to spend an early night, and wake up nice and ready to take on...whatever's out there."

"Sounds good."

"No problems here."

"Uhh, R-Ruby? I may have a problem." Grinding her toes against the ground, Olive desperately glances around to avoid making eye contact, while Roux and Violet both roll their eyes at the adorable display. IN combat, Olive is fine talking with Ruby, but the instant they are in a normal setting, she let's her affection get the better of her.

"What is it Olive?" Ruby stares at the girl with a warm smile, before her face drops, "You didn't get hurt did you?"

"Oh, n-no! No, I'm alright...It's just that...one of the Beowolves slashed my bag, and kind of...b-broke the signal booster."

Ruby takes Olive by the shoulders, though the gesture causes both other girls to giggle at the height difference between the two girls, while Olive's blush returns with a vengeance.

"Olive, it's fine. We aren't that far from town, and from there we can just use a Bullhead radio to tell Vale what we find out here."

Sighing, Ruby then takes her hands off Olive and smiles. While it's not the end of the world, it does mean that they won't be able to speak with anyone through their scrolls until they return to town.

"Now then, let's go find somewhere nice and set up cam-" Facepalming, Ruby then turns to face Olive again. "Olive, what else was on your bag?"

Olive then frantically looks back, and moans when she says "T-The tents..." before covering her face with her hands.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby looks around.

"Ok, well I guess we'll have to find a cave or something. Without the tents, I don't want us being out of shelter if it suddenly rains. Well, let's get moving, we don't want to be out here when those Grimm come back!"

Traipsing off towards the trees, Ruby can't help but feel a creeping sense of unease spread through her body.

"We'll be fine, we have our weapons, our dust, and each other. Just because some Grimm ran away isn't the end of the world! Right girls?" Ruby happily yells.

When nobody responds, Ruby spins around, "Girls?", only to have a black mass swing towards her face, then darkness.

* * *

"AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

Ruby lunges awake to the sound of a horrendous scream, made worse by the dark, enclosed space she now finds herself in, and the throbbing headache she finds herself stuck with.

Grabbing her head with both hands, Ruby buries her head between her legs and waits for the pain to hopefully recede, to the point where she can hear herself think, before getting up and having a look around. A cursory glance around reveals jagged stone walls and a sturdy metal door. Aside from a bowl filled with water, another bowl with some gruel, and some scattered grass on the ground, her room is barren.

Except for the blood.

Splashed on the walls, floor, door, and even some dripping down from the ceiling, the room Ruby finds herself in is practically coated in a layer of blood. At first glance, Ruby mistook it for some kind of reddish rock, but upon closer inspection, and with the heavy stench of copper filling the room, she lurches back and almost vomits at the sight of so much blood.

Terrified, Ruby frantically lurches around the room, still holding her head in her hands, and frantically searches for any indication of where she is or where her team-mates are, crossing her fingers and begging to anybody that would listen, that the horrifying scream that woke her was not one of her teammates.

After a few minutes of frantic searching, she gives up on that idea and approaches the door, fearful of what kind of person would do something like this. Certainly nobody she'd ever want to know, judging from the fact that the knocked her out and left her to wake up alone in a room covered in blood. Definitely not her kind of first impression.

Pushing against the door, Ruby almost leaps back when the door actually starts moving, then steels herself and presses against the door again, gasping when, instead of stopping or triggering some kind of trap, the door simply swings open.

Paranoia sets in and Ruby almost curls up upon realizing that nobody could possibly be stupid enough to simply leave a prisoners door unlocked, and that they must have some kind of trick or trap set up to mess with her.

Smirking to herself, Ruby once again steels herself and mentally prepares to use her semblance in case of trouble. Whoever did this to her will regret messing with Ruby Rose!

That is, as soon as she finds them. Cautiously tip-toeing down barren caves, occasionally taking branching paths and keeping her ears pricked, Ruby can't help but let out a sigh at how boring walking through this cave is. Still terrified, but walking for who knows how long without hearing any indication of anyone else being in these caves would make anybody a little bored.

Finding another off-shoot, Ruby stands at the entrance for a moment before smacking her head, then wincing at her stupidity as she clutches her head again, mentally chastising herself for bringing her headache back.

She then recalls what exactly her teacher told her when she asked about finding her way through caves, since more than once Ruby and her team have had to enter winding caves to eliminate subterranean Grimm, and having a reliable method of getting back out is always good.

She then licks a finger and presses herself against the wall of the cave, focusing as hard as she can on any kind of gust, anything to indicate where the air for this cave is coming from. And, after a few moments of hopeful fear, she feels the faintest of gusts. No more than a feather-lick of wind, but enough to tell Ruby which way air is flowing in from.

And that's when it hits Ruby.

Should she go deeper into the cave, and hope that her friends are there, since surely whoever has captured them would keep them as far from the surface as possible to lessen the likelihood of escape, or should she escape and hope her friends are on the way out, like her, since her cell is back the way the wind came from, indicating that she'd been going deeper into the caves.

In the end, Ruby decides that it'd be suicide to attempt to go deeper, since if her friends are down there, they likely would be surrounded by whoever captured them, and Ruby doesn't have her sweetheart, so fighting them would be a terrible idea. While no slouch, Ruby simply doesn't trust her hand to hand abilities against people who are actually armed, especially if they are capable of sneaking up on and capturing huntresses.

So, with a heavy heart and a firm promise to find her team, Ruby begins the arduous trek to where she hopes to find the surface, fearful yet hopeful of what she'll find.

* * *

A few hours later, Ruby finally spots something that makes her blood freeze.

In the middle of a large clearing in the cave, is a table. Sat at the table is the first sign of life Ruby had seen since she was knocked unconscious. Two men were sat there, both with their backs to Ruby, and conversing with each other about something that Ruby couldn't make out.

However, what truly froze Ruby was what one of the men was wearing. Draped over his neck was a necklace of fingers. Human fingers.

Fighting the urge to vomit, Ruby could only stare in horror as the men, seemingly unfazed by what the man was wearing, continued talking. One of the men then gestures towards the others wrist. Abruptly, they stopped talking, stand, and made their way towards another cave.

Following along, Ruby desperately listened out for any indication of where they were going, but the men seemed content to simply walk down the cave, with not a care in the world, seemingly thinking themselves safe here in their nest.

Frowning, Ruby wished she had her sweetheart, she'd take those men down and drag them back to Vale to answer for whatever sick things they'd done to get those fingers.

Rounding several more corners, Ruby then noticed that she could hear something in the background. Unsure of what it was, Ruby kept listening while the men seemed to speed up slightly, until Ruby identified it as men cheering at something. At what, she could only guess, though with the thought of what that man was wearing, she could only hope it wasn't anywhere near as bad as taking somebody's fingers.

Licking her finger and focusing, Ruby notices that the men have been heading towards the source of air for most of their journey, only now turning towards a tunnel away from the air-flow. Frowning, Ruby decides to keep following the men towards the cheering, hopeful to find some explanation of who these men are, where her sweetheart is, and most importantly, where her team is.

Finally, the men round one last corner, and almost break into a run, apparently eager to arrive at whatever their journey has been taking them towards, while Ruby follows along at a decent distance.

Until she spots what exactly all the ruckus is about.

A crude arena, little more than a pit surrounded by stone, where men stand and look down into the arena, watching and cheering as two people fight inside this hole.

Glancing around from the shadows, Ruby can't pick out anything specific from any of the men around the arena, nor do the combatants look vaguely familiar. Taking a closer look at the arena walls, however, has Ruby clasping her hands over her mouth to muffle a sorrowful wail, collapsing to her knees.

There, impaled on the many crude iron spikes that line the walls of this arena, is the bodies of her team-mates.

Mouths contorted into silent screams, each of her three team-mates have been brutally impaled onto the spiked walls, several spikes impaling through their bodies, and limbs splayed out at random.

Roux, the brave skirmisher, with a spike through her head, whilst her arms are twisted like demented twizzlers.

Violet, the slightly nuts brawler, with her hands cut off and impaled on either side of her head, whilst other spikes jut out haphazardly from the rest of her body.

And Olive, her shy friend, her head removed and stuck like some horrifying ornament above her equally impaled body.

And all Ruby can ask is 'Why?'

Why would somebody even do something like this? And why is she still alive? Why isn't she down there, on that wall, on display like some horrifying decoration?

Gathering as much will as she can muster, Ruby bursts out of the cave, taking great gasps of air, barely staying conscious through her hyper-ventilating. She runs, and runs, trying to run as far from that hell-hole as she can. Instinctively following the flow of air, Ruby barely notices the very few, scattered monsters wearing human skin that witness a red blur pass, the only evidence of her passing being the red petals and the breeze that blows past them.

After a few minutes of Semblance-fueled running, she finally bursts out of the cave, but doesn't stop. She runs and runs, barely noting where she came out, only caring to run from that nightmare, and praying that she wakes up before those monsters catch her again.

* * *

"Hey Russet! Get over here you lazy bugger! You don't want to miss the Bullhead, do you?"

Sighing, Russet swivels her head around to get a faceful of blonde hair, though at this distance it's more akin to a lions mane than something a human would call hair.

"Yang, we're fine, we have tons of time to get on board, it doesn't leave for like," Russet checks her watch, "5 minutes at least, we have time."

Yang then all but drags Russet along behind her, all the while yelling on about how they still need to actually be on board, and how she wants to scout out all the good looking boys before anybody else sink their claws into them.

"Seriously Yang? That's your reason for wanting to get on board early, scope out cute boys?"

"GAH! Not just cute, Russet! Hotties, Cuties, Ladies!" Yang says the last one with a wink to Russet, "They're all fair game in the loving embrace of Yang! Not like you can really party until at least one Yang-Bang!"

Facepalming, Russet, simply wrenches her arm out of Yangs grip, muttering all the way.

"I swear, even after 4 years together at Signal, I still hate your stupid puns. Can't you hold off on tail-chasing and puns for one day? One. Day. It's all I ask."

"Aww, that's sweet that you think you could get that much time away from these puns. But neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow shall keep this Yang from making her assigned pun-deliveries! Besides, it's our first day entering Beacon, we have to start our new school life off" "Please don't Yang." "With a YANG!"

"I hope you're happy now. At this point I can't even muster the energy to tell you just how bad that pun is."

"Aww, c'mon Russet, you know you love 'em. I mean, look at scraggly over there. He's practically green with envy over how you've hogged my puns to yourself for 4 years!"

Russet glances over to see the aforementioned boy, who definitely looks a shade too green to be very normal.

"Uhh, Yang, I don't think he's green with envy..."

"Hmm? Wha..." Just as Yang takes another look at her friend, Russet jumps out of the way, while the unfortunate boy is rather violently sick into a nearby trashcan.

"Eww dude. Well, I guess the view ain't for everyone." Yang says, patting the poor, sick boy on the back while he wipes his mouth off on his sleeves.

"Uhh, Yang, don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but you should look down."

"What? Oh GROSS!" Glancing down, Yang looks at her shoes, to find one of them covered on vomit.

"Ew, keep away Yang! Don't try wiping that on my jeans! Piss off Yang, that's disgusting!"

* * *

At the same time, Ruby begins her stroll down the center of Beacon, eager yet apprehensive on meeting students who, for the first time, she'll be teaching, rather than sharing a class with. Glancing around, Ruby can't help but hide in her cloak slightly at some of the stares that the students loitering around are leveling at this odd girl who clearly is too old to be there for initiation, yet also can't be another student, since the school is closed right now to both visitors and already enrolled students, and all regular students should be away from the school to allow for the new students to arrive and settle in.

Noticing a student who clearly is far too immersed in trying to wrap their head around the useless Beacon maps that were handed out, Ruby decides to step in, marking this down as her first kind act of the school year.

Only to then have to use her semblance when she realizes that said student is seconds away from smashing into a trolley covered in dust containers.

Grabbing the student by the wrist, Ruby swiftly spins on the spot, redirecting the student away from the cases, thus averting disaster. Then, she could place her hands on her hips and smile as the student praised her awesome abilities for averting disaster!

Or at least, that was the plan.

"WHAT DO YOU DOING?"

Ruby glanced back at the shrill voice, noting the rather odd choice of attire that this white-clad girl was wearing. Her heels were the biggest offender, far too tall to be a good choice in combat, they'd just be asking for her to slip up and injure her ankle during a dangerous situation. The combat skirt is a nice touch, much like her own skirt, allowing good mobility, whilst making a frankly awesome fashion statement.

The strangest part about her outfit though was her crest. Ruby tried, but couldn't for the life of her recognize what it was. She knew she'd seen it, somewhere, but couldn't place it. Whatever the crest was, the girl had just practically screamed at her, probably be a good idea to actually talk to her.

"Uhh, what do you mean?" Ruby stares at the new girl, eyebrow raised.

"WHAT DO I MEAN? I mean why are you swinging people around like toys, especially right next to my dust?!"

Sighing, Ruby folds her arms across her chest. "Well excuse me for preventing someone from falling straight into this pile of dust, but considering how despite how slowly that guy was walking, you apparently took no notice of him, even when he was seconds away from smashing face-first into this stuff. Maybe, instead of going so hysterical at me, you should say something like 'thank you for saving my dust', and probably also saving that guy from being blown into the sky."

"Seriously? You expect me to say thank you to some student who, instead of calmly stepping between that boy and my dust, decides to swing him around like an improvised flail, and risk knocking all of my dust around, possibly setting it off? Couldn't you have just stepped in front of him and stopped him calmly, like a rational person?"

"Listen Princess, I don't know if you noticed, but I didn't exactly have much time to calmly stop him when he was two steps from that dust. Also, what do you mean 'Student'?" Unfolding her arms, Ruby leans forward, causing the girl to stumble back a step, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I mean student. As in, someone attending this academy to be come a huntress. Don't tell me you're just a visitor?"

Rolling her eyes, Ruby stares back at the unflinching gaze of this girl, temper fraying from the sheer nerve of this girl.

"Well, excuse me, but I'm actually a teacher her-"

Before she could get another letter in, the girl steps back towards her, glaring straight into her eyes.

"There's no way you're a teacher here. You can't be more than 3 years older than me. Even at your oldest, you'd still be IN Beacon, let alone being experienced enough to actually teach here! Don't even try to pretend you're anything other than a student or visitor."

And, just like that, the girl spins on her heel and marches off, with her dust cases in tow, leaving a very irate Ruby to glower at her back.

"Well that's a fine how-do-you-do Princess!" Ruby yells after the girl, before muttering under her breath "Stupid Snow-White Stuck-Up Bit-No, bad Ruby! No swearing your mouth off at the students. Deep breaths. Even if she does deserve it."

With this, Ruby turns and starts walking towards Ozpin's tower, a determined glint in her eye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi there everyone! Thanks for the reviews, it's seriously weird being praised for something that seems so bad in my eyes! One thing, I forgot to add it credit to Coeur Al'Aran, his Professor Arc story was part of the reason why I made this story, so there's that out of the way.**

** And, without further Ado...**

_**Chapter 2**_

* * *

"Stupid brat. What's even up with her? Head so far up her ass she might as well be a pretzel!"

Stomping her way through the gardens surrounding Beacon, Ruby barely gives any of the students that are wandering around a second glace before passing them by. A few unlucky ones even get a rare glare for their efforts in trying to talk to her.

Marching onwards towards the tower, Ruby takes a few deep breaths and tries desperately to not immediately launch into another loud tirade about that bitch of a girl she met. Granted, she was a bitch, but it's probably not a good idea to start swearing like a Vacuan sailor on her first official day as a teacher.

After a few moments leaning against a tree, Ruby then notices the legs dangling above her. Glancing upwards, Ruby sees a sight she didn't quite expect.

A black-clad girl with a bow on her head, resembling a pair of adorable cat ears, swinging her legs gently in the breeze, book in one hand, the other gently resting on the branch she finds herself sat on. The most captivating sight though is the girls vibrant amber eyes. Granted, those aren't quite as rare as Ruby's own silver eye, but it's a pretty rare sight to behold.

"Oh! Hi there! Sorry I didn't exactly notice you above me!"

"Okay?"

Sighing, Ruby walks away from the tree to get a better look at the girl, and in doing so notices her weapon.

'No, bad Ruby. Don't gush over every single weapon you see. Just because it's clearly some super awesome mechashifting weapon does not mean I can just nerd out over it, even if it is JUST THE COOLEST THING EVER!'

Coughing a few times to cover up her staring at the girls weapon, Ruby stares up at the girl, who seems remarkably comfortable to just continue reading and being stared at.

"So, whatcha reading? Anything interesting? Oh OH, is it X-Ray and Vav? I heard they released some comics, is that it?"

"No. It's a book about a Faunus with two souls, vying for control over his body. One half is his normal side, and the other is the animal side. Both want to control the body, but only one can have true control over him."

"Hmm, I haven't heard of that one. Oh well! I'm sure it's awesome!"

"Yes, it is. Which is why I'll continue reading it. Right now."

"Well, don't let me get in the way. Say, can I ask you what your weapon is?" At the glare the girl levels at Ruby, she quickly steps back and waves her hands about. "Don't worry, I'm not here to try and figure out some kind of advantage over you through your weapon, I'm not even here to take the initiation test, I'm actually here to teach."

Glancing up and down the girl stood below her, Blake raises an eyebrow.

"You? You're a teacher here, despite clearly only being a couple years senior to the first year initiates?"

"Yep! Ozpin gave me the spot after I spent a few days talking it over with him. You'd think the man was an ancient or something, the way he just barely budges, even after hours of arguing!"

"Uh huh. Well, look, I really would like to get back to my book now please."

Sheepishly, Ruby digs a shoe into the ground. "Oh yeah, that's fine. I'll see you around I guess then..."

Staring back, Blake simply grunts out a "Blake."

With a wide smile, Ruby glances back up at the girl. "Blake! Well, my names Ruby. I'll see you around the campus."

Just before walking off, Ruby looks back over her shoulder up at the girl with a smirk.

"By the way, has anyone ever told you that you look kinda like a cat with that ribbon?"

Blake can only stare at the girl in disbelief as she wanders off towards the Headmasters tower.

* * *

"Yang! Yang, where are you? Come on, it isn't funny any more."

Frantically running around, Russet peers around for any indication of her blonde-maned friend. That same friend who said she'd stay with Russet and help find wherever the students are meant to go. Instead of that though, at the first sign of her other friends from Signal, she vanished like a leaf in the wind, leaving Russet, alone, in the middle of a completely unfamiliar school.

"Uhh, excuse me?"

Spinning around, Russet comes face to face with another student. The student appears to be a little older than everyone else, though not by much. Glancing down at her outfit, the only thing Russet can think is 'Gothic'. A pure black corset with red threads, a red cape held on by cross-shaped pins, a silver rose on her hip and a black combat skirt, all with red linings.

What really catches the eye in the girls face. A monochromatic pair of eyes gaze back, one a beautiful silver whilst the other is the opposite, an endless black, though the eye is then drawn above them to the red-tipped black hair cascading down her head and past her shoulders.

And in her infinite wisdom, all Russet can think to say is "Pretty."

Immediately Russets face lights up like a christmas light and she looks away muttering "Sorry!" a thousand times over, while the girl simply stares back in amusement and disbelief.

"Pretty? Really? That's the first thing that comes to mind when someone says 'Excuse me'?" Brushing a hand through her hair, the girl then looks around before leaning in, "Though thank you for the compliment."

At this, Russets blush returns with a vengeance, causing the girl to burst out laughing, patting her on the shoulder.

"Aww, c'mon, don't be like that. Now then, what did I hear about Yang?"

"O-Oh, uh, Yang's a friend of mine from Signal. She was MEANT to stay with me so we could find wherever new students are meant to go, but instead she left me here, alone!"

Stifling another laugh, the girl rubs Russets shoulder, eliciting yet another, albeit weaker, blush from Russet. "Aww, well lucky you, you've come to the right person! I happen to know my way around this place like the back of my hand! I mean, I don't actually know the back of my hand very well, but it's the saying that counts, right?"

Rubbing her head, Russet can only try and hold off from staring at the girl in front of her, before sighing. "Well, do you know where the new students are meant to go? The maps they handed out are useless!"

"Oh, that's the point!" Russet can't help but stare at this point.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the maps are meant to be useless. Something about how 'A true hunter must be able to persevere with inferior equipment and use any and all advantages to succeed.' Or something like that."

Pinching her nose and clenching her eyes tight, Russet simply says "That's so stupid."

"Well, is it?"

Glaring back at the girl, Russet looks at her in disbelief. "Seriously? How is that not stupid? We were given maps, told they were maps to Beacon, yet they just lead us around like headless chickens!"

"That's the whole point. Think about it. It both trains you to not simply trust everything you're given when out in outlier towns, and at the same time tests all applicants in their ingenuity. If you can't even find the auditorium on campus, how can you be expected to find your way through a Grimm-infested and uncharted part of the wilderness?"

"Huh. Now that I think about it, while I still hate it, it kind of makes sense. In a roundabout way that is."

"Well, since Ozpin never expressly stated that I can't help, I'm going to make this my second random act of kindness on campus! Here, give me your map." Handing over the now useless map, the red girl takes a pen out of somewhere and starts writing and drawing all over the map "See, all they've done is move around the buildings. All the paths are still the same. So, if you follow this path, you'll find your way to the auditorium in no time!"

"Well, thanks." Sticking a hand out to the girl, Russet takes a deep breath. "I'm Russet. I'm, obviously, a new applicant to Beacon! Pleased to meetcha!"

Taking the hand, the girl gives it a good shake. "Hi Russet! I'm Ruby. I'm actually going to be teaching here, today is really only my first day."

At this point, Russet realizes that more than half of this conversation has had her staring at Ruby for various reasons, but that doesn't stop her from staring with her jaw open.

"W-Wait, WHAT?"

Wincing at the sudden jump in volume, Ruby can only look back at Russet, a small frown on her face as she takes her hand back. "What? I'm going to be teaching here this year."

"B-but you're only like...a couple years older than us. Why would you be teaching here? I mean, don't get me wrong, teachers here are pretty awesome, but you don't look like you should have even graduated yet!"

Pressing her fingers together, Ruby glances around before leaning in towards Russet, causing another blush at the closeness.

"Don't tell anybody, but I was let into Beacon 2 years early, so while I'm actually younger than some of the 4th year students, I've been graduated for a full year."

"Okay, but that doesn't explain why a huntress with only a years experience outside of school is now teaching in said school."

"I'd...really rather not get into that. Sorry." Glancing down, Ruby almost leaps out of her shoes at the sight. "Oh crap, you need to get a shift on, otherwise you won't reach the auditorium in time. Get, go on, shift it! I'll see you around school Russet!"

Being pushed by the girl, Russet takes one last look behind her at the redhead, only to see a mini tornado of rose petals gust off in a random direction.

"See you around then, Ruby..."

* * *

"ARGH! I can't take it any more! Oz, please, let me do it my way, pleeeease!"

Taking a sip from his mug, Ozpin simply glances back at the young woman ahead of him with a raised eyebrow.

"Miss Rose, I believe I've already told you that, while I appreciate that you wish to endear yourself to the students, doing so in such a manner is hardly befitting of the station to which you now find yourself in. Tell me, what do you think would be the students reactions if you were to go ahead with this plan?"

Stubbing her toe against the ground, Ruby simply stares back at Ozpin, gears turning in her head to find the downside of her, frankly genius, plan. "They'd love it. Well, all but a few of them would love it. A few would probably not enjoy it quite as much, but, come on Oz, you have to admit it'd be a damned good way to introduce me to the new student body. Anyway, I need to prove that I'm a teacher, not a student, especially after what that stupid Snow White stuck-up brat said."

Taking another sip, and leaning back with a sigh, Ozpin closes his eyes and simply sits still for a moment, before re-opening them and meeting the gaze of his newest teacher head-on.

"Well, since you clearly would just do this without my consent if I don't give it," Ruby looks a bit sheepish at this, a wry smile appearing on her face,"I shall allow it, on two conditions."

"Ok, what are your conditions for it then Oz?"

"Firstly Miss Rose, you'll be held responsible should anything happen during this little stunt."

"Well obviously."

"And you shall refrain from any, ANY, physical contact during your event."

"Oh, that's fine. I mean, the original plan didn't involve physical contact anyway so that's cool and with Crescent Rose being how she is now it's not like I don't have really good control over her so there's no risk as we-"

"Miss Rose."

Ruby stops herself and looks back at the headmaster embarrassed. "Sorry Oz, you know how I get with stuff like this. It's just- It's going to be a great way for the students to really relate with me, you know. I mean, Glynda is nice when you actually know her, but 99% of the students see her as some kind of indomitable stone wall of sternness, meaning they don't willingly go to her if they need help, she scares them too much."

"While I don't appreciate the sentiment Miss Rose," Glynda Goodwitch says from behind Ruby, causing her to jump, "I can see why you think so strongly about this."

"Oh, sorry Miss Goodw-Glynda. I don't think I'm ever going to manage to call you Glynda on the first try, especially after 4 years of 'Miss Goodwitch.'"

With a rare smile, Glynda turns towards Ruby. "That's fine. Even Qrow has a hard time not calling me Goodwitch. Or, when he's drunk, Goodbitch."

At this, both women share a good laugh, while Ozpin simply smiles into his mug, before glancing towards a clock.

"Well, considering the time, we should be making our way to the auditorium. Miss Rose, while I still don't think this is a good way to introduce somebody of your caliber and station to the students, I know that you truly want to do this, so I shan't force your hand. Just, be careful. While our students aren't fragile by any means, we still don't want to have to file any incident reports, now do we?"

Sighing, Ruby turns to Oz, muttering a quick "Never again.", before blitzing off towards the auditorium to prepare ahead of the two teachers.

"Ozpin. While I trust your judgement, I still don't think it was a smart idea to bring her into the fold so early. I mean, for god sake, some of the 3rd year students are slightly older than her. And certainly, since she'll only be teaching first year students it will make it easier on her, they'll still have a hard time taking her seriously with the meagre age difference."

Taking a final sip from his mug, Ozpin simply gazes out onto his campus, eyes tracking a red blur zipping across the campus. "This isn't simply my wish though, it's hers. She wants this just as much as I do, if not more so. It would be cruel of me to deny her this, especially after what the Red Fang did to her team. And in any case, who am I to turn away talented teachers?"

"I just hope you're right about this Oz."

* * *

"Hey Russet! Over here!"

"Oh, hey Yang."

Glancing around the room, Russet can only make out a few familiar faces, aside from Yang, the majority being students from different combat schools, or simply students Russet hasn't seen in Signal before.

"Wow, talk about a downer. What happened, you fall into a fountain or something?"

Sighing, Russet turns back to her friend with a grimace.

"Wait, you didn't actually fall into a fountain did you?" Patting her arms, Yang double checks, then sighs when her hands come back dry. "Well, what happened that's so bad you go from being normal you, to being this weird, mopey version of Russet? Don't tell me you aren't Russet!" Yang exclaims, an accusatory finger outstretched, though the giant grin on her face dispels any threat the action may generate.

Swatting her finger away, Russet sighs again. "No Yang, I'm fine, just ran into someone, and both embarrassed myself a ton and possibly annoyed them to the point of hating me."

"Wow, that's actually kinda rough there buddy." Yang reaches over and slings her arm across her friends shoulders, bringing her into an awkward side-hug. "So, what happened?"

"Argh, that's just it! I was doing kind of alright, despite being more lost than I've ever been before, no thanks to you, then this cute girl comes along and is all like 'Excuse me?' and she's like really cute so I call her pretty and then get embarrassed and then we start talking and she helps me out with my map, then tells me she's actually a teacher, then I asked her about why she's a teacher since she's like a few years older than us and-"

"Okay, easy there tiger, slow down." Yang pats her friends back, before taking a deep breath. "Just slow down a little, even I can't keep up with you when you talk that fast."

"Sorry Yang. I just asked her why she was a teacher since she's only been out of school for a year and she got this look on her face and made some excuse and ran off. I just wanna tell her I'm sorry about it."

"Aww, don't worry Rus, I'm sure she's not that mad. I mean, I know like, two people who'd get actually mad and for good reason, and only one of them would ever come close to Beacon! Granted, the other is already a teacher, and is usually drunk enough to scare a Vacuan freebooter, but you get the point."

"Well, thanks Yang, I still want to-Huh?" Before Russet could continue, a balled up piece of paper bounces off her head and lands in her hands. After glancing around and seeing nobody obvious who threw it, she shrugs and unwraps the paper, and begins reading.

'Hey Russet. Two things. First, sorry I ran off. And second, don't fret so much, you didn't know that I'm touchy about my past. From Ruby.'

"What's that Rus?" Yang peers over her shoulder, reading the note before snorting. "Wow girl, you work fast, you're already getting secret notes passed to you, and we haven't even started school yet!"

"Oh knock it off Yang. Anyway, it's not like it's a love letter. Oh hey, it's the Headmaster."

Standing up on the stage of Headmaster Ozpin.

"I'll...keep this brief. You have travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you've finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see...is wasted energy. In need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you...to take the first step."

"Now. Some of you may have run into a red-clothed young woman during your pre-initiation test. This woman is not, in fact, a student at this school, as she has told me a few of you have believed. She is in fact, despite her relative age, a teacher at this academy, starting this year. She will be taking over the first year combat class, and she will also be re-opening the dust studies class, also for first year students."

"A few of you may have doubts as to her combat prowess, but I can assure you that she is just as capable as any other hunter, despite her relative age."

"Pwwsh, if she's so strong, why isn't she up there with you? Sounds like she's scared of us!" A brute of a man with a mop of messy orange hair and a large crested chestpiece abruptly yells.

But, before he can get any more boasting, a whistling sound tears through the air, and with a loud crunch, a large, blood-red scythe embeds itself between the offending students legs, causing said student to let out a rather undignified and very effeminate scream and leap backwards, falling onto his rear, eyes wide as he tries to find his attacker.

"Because, Mr Winchester, she deemed it necessary to have a rather...unique entrance. Now, if I could direct your attention upwards..."

As the students eyes raise up to the ceiling, they notice that, amongst the rafters, a red cape gently flutters, before a figure drops down, directly onto her scythe, yet without making the scythe even slightly shift, with poise and elegance as she then stands and casually walks along the shaft of her weapon, like a tight-rope walker, then flipping, and smoothly transitioning to the ground, grasping the scythe then swirling it behind her, collapsing down and onto her back, concealing the weapon beneath her cape.

With nary a glance at the now thoroughly terrified student, or the stifled laughter of the other students, the newcomer makes an exaggerated bow before walking onto the stage, nodding to Ozpin and stepping out in front of the microphone.

"Well, with my little stunt out of the way, hello everyone!"

Glancing over the room, Ruby can see an uncountable number of expressions. From amusement, to fear, to pure bewilderment, and the best ones, pure awe at the skill demonstrated in front of them. However, the one she is looking for, is the firmly stuck expression of pure shock currently resting on the face of one Snow White wannabe. With a quick smile, she then redirects her attention the group as a whole, leaving the white-clad girl with her mouth gaping at the girl like a fish.

"So, introductions. I've already met a few of you, but just to get it out of the way, let's just do it now. My name is Ruby Rose, former leader of team Rover, Scythe Wielder, all round badass, slayer of monsters and baker of cookies! Now, as Ozpin explained, I'm actually only 20." As the hall erupts into murmured conversation, Ruby briefly glances around again, noting that the white-clad girl is now staring at her shoes, almost as if they were made of diamonds, and pointedly making no attempts to look anywhere near Ruby.

"Alright, that's enough now. Yes, I am the same age as some of your upperclassmen, and yes I did graduate just like everyone else, I wasn't let go early. Some of you may already know this, but I was entered into Beacon 2 years early at the behest of one Headmaster Ozpin, and as such was two years younger than everyone else in my year, which was rather awkward. But, with my awesome scythe skills, it wasn't long until they all decided I was worth keeping around. I mean, look at Mr Winchester if you need a second opinion."

Drawing the entire rooms attention to the poor boy, many try and fail to hold in laughter at the boy, who is now staring at the girl open-mouthed, as though she just told everybody his most embarrassing secret.

"Now, with that out of the way, and thanks to Ozpin" levelling a glare over at the headmaster, who simply hides his smile behind his mug, "already explaining what I'm here to do, I'll simply say this. I know it's a bit awkward going to teachers who are by far your elders for advice, so if you have any problems, please, come and have a chat. Don't forget, I'm only a couple years older than even the youngest of you, so I'd hope that you think me a bit more relatable than Miss 'Stonewall' Goodwitch."

Ignoring the frosty glare the aforementioned teacher is giving her, Ruby then bows, and walks off stage, to the sound of sudden discussion. A few words stand out, though she tries her best to ignore them.

"-bloody rose comes from?"

"-can't be very good-"

"-could take her down easily if-"

With a rather forced smile, Ruby then leaves the building, pondering just how the students will take her arrival.

And, with luck, she'll be able to save a few from suffering her own pain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Heya everyone! Just a few quick things before the chapter.**

**1\. I'm probably only going to be updating this every week or two. I know I released 2 chapters in under 24 hours, but that was because I had a draft ready for what I planned on making a single chapter, but split it in two.**

**2\. Ruby and Yang aren't related in this story. They still know each other, the how of which will be gotten into later, but they aren't actually sisters any more. Why is this? Because I felt like it. That's pretty much the whole reason, it helps detach Ruby a little from the old team.**

**3\. If any of you are interested, on my profile there's a few story ideas, if you could give them a brief glance and tell me which ones you'd like to see, I can gauge your reactions and see whether any of them garner any interest.**

**Now, on with the chapter!**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"Well, she was...interesting."

"Yang, interesting is being told the Achieve Men once met on a beach when they were all boys and didn't know each other. She was...I don't know what to call her. The only word I could use to describe her is that she's an enigma."

Rubbing her chin, Russet stares at the doorway Ruby walked through, trying to connect the dots about why she seemed so broken, yet happy, yet anxious, all at the same time. A strange amalgamation of feelings for somebody who introduced themselves by embedding their weapon between the legs of a prospective student. Surely she should be laid-back, yet ready to pounce into action, but also rather cocky, since with her skill being demonstrated in such a manner, she had proven to the entire hall just how skilled she must be, to not only make that throw, but to do it without anybody even seeing her, nor the weapon, before it had struck.

"Yeah, exactly Russet! That's why I just called her interesting! Interesting is the only way to describe her!" Yang exclaims, throwing an arm around her friends neck and practically dragging her towards the door, humming under her breath as she walks.

"Ugh, get off Yang, I can walk on my own just fine, thank you very much!" Shoving her arm off, Russet throws one last glance back at the stage, then upwards to where the woman was lying in wait, rubbing her chin in thought.

"Hey Yang?" At her friends questioning tone Yang spins around and looks at her friend. "What was that name that some people said, Bleeding Rose? Bloody Rose? I can't remember it, but do you think that's her nickname or something?"

"Oh, uh, I wouldn't want to be the one to tell you that." Yang rubs the back of her neck, glancing away quickly before looking back. "If you want to know, why not just hunt her down and ask her yourself? I mean, at the same time you could ask her any other questions rattling around in that noggin' of yours!" At this, Yang quickly snatches her friend and begins a vicious noogie.

"H-Hey Yang, get off me! I swear, my hair is not your plaything!"

Finally being released with a parting swipe, Russet begins the arduous task of fixing her hair as best she can, whilst continuing on to the doors, with a mission in mind: Hunt down the new teacher, and get some answers.

Glancing at her friend, Yang sighs, wondering why exactly she wasn't told about this...

* * *

At the same time, two other girls in the auditorium simply stand, staring, much like a large portion of the student body, at the door Ruby exited, in disbelief that what the girl told them was actually true.

"She's far too young for that. She can't nearly be as old as Winter, and she isn't close to being a teacher."

Glancing to her side, Blake see's a girl in white muttering to herself about the young woman who just proved to them all that she is, in fact, both a teacher, and judging by the sizable slice in the floor where her weapon was embedded, incredibly skilled. Even with her skills from the White Fang, Blake didn't even notice the girl hiding almost directly above her.

Shuddering at the thought, Blake turns to leave, only to have her arm grasped by something. Resisting the urge to grab Gambol Shroud and remove the arm of whatever just grabbed her, she turns on the spot, to see the girl, now much closer, grasping her sleeve whilst staring at her.

"E-Excuse me, she looked too young to be a teacher, right? I mean, it's an easy mistake to make, and something I imagine a lot of people must have done upon meeting her, yes?"

Stifling a laugh at the pseudo-polite call for justification the girl was looking for, Blake turns to leave again, whilst speaking over her shoulder.

"Oh no, she's definitely old enough, and skill;ed enough. I mean, did you see her arms? That short sleeve shirt she was wearing didn't exactly do much to hide those scars and muscles, did they?" At the mention of scars, the girl unconsciously reaches up to touch her own scar, " And her weapon...I mean, if you couldn't tell she was an expert huntress from seeing her weapon, I'd wonder what you were even doing in combat school."

Turning her face away at the last moment, Blake finally couldn't resist the urge and let out a very light laugh at the face the girl made, as it turned from hopeful to distraught at the idea of mis-identifying such an elite huntress.

"Oh no, what would Winter say...I need to find her! I need to just find her and apologize!"

Her course now set, the white-clad girl suddenly darted off towards the way the new teacher went, leaving Blake to try and hold her laughter until she was out of earshot. The instant she was through the door and wouldn't be able to hear it, Blake let loose her laughter, startling a few of the students still remaining in the auditorium, barely caring about the attention she was attracting.

The faces the girl made during that conversation would have been enough to be worthy of popcorn, but the real cincher was that Blake had seen the crests adorning the girl, not to mention the prominent facial scar, icy-blue eyes and snow-white hair, and knew that she was talking, or rather, embarrassing, The one and only Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. The simple thought of it caused Blake to let loose another laugh.

Now very happy with herself, Blake makes her own way out of the auditorium, content to find a nice tree to sit against and read, recalling the conversation over and over again, and laughing every time, unaware of the red-clad woman watching, enjoying a slight laugh of her own at the sound of pure, joyful laughter coming from this girl.

* * *

Walking back down the long path towards her assigned position for the night, Ruby occasionally glances towards the new students, gauging their reactions to her. Some act with fear, others with admiration, and a few with indifference or cockiness, believing themselves stronger than this girl.

Chuckling to herself at that thought, Ruby fails to notice the yellow-haired girl hurriedly strolling up to her, until her arm is grasped and she is firmly swung around, coming face to face with one Yang Xiao Long.

"Oh, uh, hey there Yang!"

"Seriously Ruby? Hey there?" Staring into her eyes, Yang lets a little of her semblance seep out, simply to keep other people away, since while Ruby isn't even remotely intimidated by Yangs little hair trick, others see her and, reasonably, get a bit afraid at the girl who's hair is on fire. "Why didn't you tell me that you were going to be in Beacon this year? I mean, I know you said that it might happen, but then you dropped back off the grid! This is the kind of stuff I'd really appreciate knowing, since I spent ages making sure that if Ember Celica was damaged there'd be weapon-smiths capable of working on her! Of course, with you here, I needn't have bothered!"

"Yang, really? You should already know it's a bad idea to rely on me for weapon maintenance. Sure, it's a hassle finding someone to fix your weapon, but what if I got injured, or was away for a long time, and something happened to your weapons? What would you do then?" Grasping Yang's shoulders firming, Ruby stares straight into Yang's eyes, forcing her to keep eye contact.

"Yang, listen to me. You need to learn how to fix your own weapon, at the very least be able to disassemble and reassemble it. I know I said I'd always help you with Ember Celica, but I meant more in modifying and upgrading, not fixing it every time something goes wrong and they get damaged. That kind of thing is something you'll need to learn, since out in the field, and far away from me, I won't always be able to fix your weapon, nor walk you through how to do so."

Rubbing her arm, Yang tries and fails to meet the unwavering gaze of Ruby, finally settling on simply glancing around her face.

"Yeah, I know, it's just...You know how bad I am at actually messing around with weapons. If I were actually good with weapons, I wouldn't have asked you to make Ember Celica for me! And I can disassemble Ember just fine...it's the reassembling part that always traps me. I always manage to miss something or put something in the wrong place and cause the gauntlets to fall apart again, or the barrel to slide straight out. Or...do you remember that time you first let me try to replace the receivers?"

Palming her face, Ruby recalls the time where, after finally re-assembling the weapon, Ruby granted Yang permission to try and replace the receivers of the two shotgun components on her gauntlets. After she did so, she told Yang to double and triple check the weapon, before attempting to fire it. And, of course, something wasn't correctly placed, causing the gauntlet to explode on Yangs arm. Obviously, Yang had her aura active, so there was no lasting injury, aside from Yangs pride.

"That still isn't a good enough excuse for getting out of learning at LEAST rudimentary maintenance. I swear, if a pebble gets into your gauntlets and they jam up because of it, I'm not fixing it. You have 4 years left before you become an actual Huntress, and if you don't learn how to maintain your own weapon out in the field, you'll almost certainly die." At hearing this, Yang blanches, knowing Ruby was never one to exaggerate things just to prove a point, especially if it involves being a Huntress. "I know at least a few times I almost got screwed over when some muck got into Crescent Rose and I couldn't shift her, for fear that it'd be mixed into her internal components, which would probably break her."

"I guess. But...Like you said, I have 4 YEARS to learn how to fix my own weapons, and while I can't do that, it means I can watch you work on them, and maybe that'll help me?" Yang looks at Ruby with hopeful eyes, akin to a puppy asking for a treat. And Ruby's resolve crumbles.

"Ugh, fine Yang, but if you don't manage to disassemble and reassemble Ember Celica," At Yangs hopeful look, she quickly adds, "and have them work without me looking over them, by the end of the first year, I'm cutting you off from my repairs cold turkey until you can do so. And I swear, if you go to a weapon-smith in town or another student without first trying it yourself, so help me I will tell every smith I know to not work with you. If you continue having problems all the way through school, then I swear I will tell Ozpin about this. He knows you didn't make your own weapons, but if I tell him you can't even repair them, he'll hold you back until you can, and I'm sure you want to avoid that, right?"

"Okay, okay! I'll do that thing! Just, please give me a hand with it, I seriously just need another push. Like I said, I can disassemble it, and before you ask, no, not disassemble violently, I take it apart properly, but even when I follow the instructions, I always manage to put a screw in the wrong place, or align something incorrectly and make Ember fall apart again. Just, please don't tell the Headmaster!"

"That sounds fair. Maybe I can tell your friend how to do it, so that way you don't have to always come to me for repairs, see if they can help you with that. By the way, who was she? She definitely seemed quite friendly with you, assuming she's a friend from Signal or something?" At this, Yang brightens back up, all remnants of the mildly heavy talk they just had wiped from her thoughts.

"Oh yeah, that's Russet. She's a bit of a weapon nut, kinda like how you used to be around other Hunters, but way toned down. I mean, while she might consider adding a few modifications to her weapon once in a while, and she can appreciate a good weapon, you used to be about a hundred times worse. I still remember the first time Qrow dragged you into the house drunk. Almost as soon as he passed out, you ran over to Tai and began asking him practically every question under the Sun about Harbinger." At this, Yang rolls her eyes. "I mean, I can appreciate a good weapon like everybody else, but I still remember you practically passing out when Tai told you that Qrow actually has 5 different ways to use Harbinger in combat, and then, of course, he has the storage form."

"H-Hey! It's not my fault Qrow never once told me that he had a War Scythe form hidden in his weapon. I mean, sure, he's used his scythe around me, hunting Grimm with a scythe is like mowing grass, but the fact he had a WAR SCYTHE! Copycat bastard. I swear he stole that from me. I mean, even Tai said he doesn't know when Qrow added it, so who else would have inspired him to add that functionality! Who else on Remnant uses a War Scythe aside from me, and now Qrow?"

At this, Ruby's scroll alarm goes off, reminding her to be at the Ballroom to watch over the students.

"Oh, uh, Yang, we should get a move on. We're meant to be in the Ballroom already, so we're a tiny bit late. Or, I'm a tiny bit late, students don't HAVE to be there yet, but it'd be a good idea to stake out a good spot, trust me. I remember my first night, I had to wedge myself against a windowsill, since every good spot was already taken. But, I need to go off and get to my spot, so I'll speak with you either tomorrow morning or after initiation. Good luck!"

With that, Ruby jogs off, leaving Yang alone to continue walking along the path, mulling over everything Ruby said to her.

* * *

"How can one woman be so good at evading me? Even Winter isn't this good at sneaking off!"

Throwing another quick look around, Weiss sighs, trying to look for any hint as to where that new teacher ran off to. After exiting the hall, she made her way towards the ballroom, hoping that the teacher was heading that way and assigned to watch the students. When she didn't find her there, Weiss then began a quick survey of the school, deciding that if Ruby were to be assigned to the Ballroom, there'd be a better chance of finding her if she didn't waste time in the hopes that the new teacher would be in the room with her, even if it would be rather convenient.

Rounding a corner, Weiss stops dead as, straight down the path, is the exact woman she's looking for. She waits, just out of earshot, until she hears the woman begin walking her way, just inside of her hearing range to hear her say "Good Luck!" to the student she was talking to. Pushing that out of her mind, Weiss quickly looks over herself, straightens her clothing, fixes her skirt, and prepares to swiftly and politely apologize to the woman she recently insulted by insinuating that she was lying to her, and simply a student.

Unfortunately for Weiss, she focused so much on thinking up an apology that she was startled by the woman suddenly waving a hand in front of her face, making her leap backwards and place a hand on Myrtenaster, her trusty rapier. Once she regains her senses, she realizes what she just did, quickly removing her hand from her weapon and coughing to regain her composure.

"You alright there Snow? You seemed pretty deep in thought"

Eyebrow twitching, Weiss tries to ignore the slight jab at her attire, instead deciding to focus on inspecting the teacher in front of her. She was clad in a black corset, with red underlines and borders, and black strings pulling the entire thing taut. Her arms were covered with detached white sleeves, held to her corset with silver clasps and dark brown belts. Around were wrists were black leather bracers, again with red borders, each with a red rose decal sown onto the material. She had a slightly lopsided belt around her waist, with a few rounds of ammunition on one hip, and a large silver buckle on the other side. The belt was holding up a short black combat skirt, above black and red combat boots.

Completing the attire, a red cloak was attached to her back, with a scarf-like wrapping attaching it to her neck, and a black and silver rose emblem just above her right breast. At her back was a large red box, presumably her weapon in some kind of transportation mode, since carrying around a scythe twice her height constantly would be slightly problematic.

Realizing she's staring again, Weiss decides to simply address the elephant in the room.

"Hello! I'm Weiss Schnee. I'm sorry for staring, I just had to be sure it was you since I needed to be certain before I apologized. It'd be rather odd to apologize to the wrong person for something that didn't happen to them." Ruby just stares, raising an eyebrow a little in disbelief that this girl was using that excuse to essentially check her out. It's not like her outfit, nor her looks were common, not even considering her monochromatic eyes, a trait that was rare, or her silver eye, something Ruby has only ever seen one other person with, her mother.

"Okay. Well, I'm here now Snow, what did you want to apologize for?" Ruby asks, smirking a little at the little eyebrow twitch the Heiress desperately tried to cover up.

Sighing, Weiss gives up trying to convince this woman to actually call her by her name, deciding it's kind of fair, considering how she essentially called her a liar. "I just wanted to apologize for insinuating that you were merely a student, and were lying to my face earlier. I will admit, even after the headmaster announced the 'red-clad woman', I still didn't believe it was actually you. Only when you buried your weapon between that brutes legs, which I must admit was rather amusing, and leapt down onto it did I actually realize that you were really a teacher here. Very few Hunters have the skill needed to land on a weapon with that kind of balance, considering it barely shifted, even when you landed right in the edge of it. I must admit, my jaw dropped at that."

"Wow. You know, all you had to say was 'I'm sorry for saying you're a liar and you're just a student here.' No need for all that description. And it's fine, I ran into a few students who had a hard time believing it, you aren't the only one. Now that that's out of the way, I really need to head to the ballroom, I was already late as it is."

"O-Oh, of course, don't let me keep you!"

"Thanks, see you around Snow!"

With that, Ruby span and activated her semblance, bursting into a cloud of blood-red rose petals and disappearing in the direction of the ballroom, leaving a confused and angry Weiss to stand amongst the petals.

"It's...Weiss..."


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everyone. Don't really have much to say here, so I'll just shamelessly promote my other story, The Crimson Dovah. If you liked how this story breaks the mold for what usually happens in this type of story, well, let's just say Crimson Dovah follows little of the normal world-swap logic. Now that I'm writing two fanfictions at the same time, expect the chapters to be shorter, about 2k words apiece, rather than 3.5k-4.5k.**

**Oh, that reminds me! I need a beta. If any of you lovely people want to beta, either for this story or Crimson Dovah, or both if you really want to be brave, I'd appreciate it. What I really want is a beta who can look over the dialogue and give me a hand making the sentences flow a bit better, as the spelling and grammar aren't too difficult to correct. So, if you want to be a beta, just send me a PM and I'll get back to you.**

**And, without further ado...**

_**Chapter 4**_

* * *

With no further interruptions, Ruby arrives at the ballroom, and then proceeds to slump against the nearest wall, not even 5 minutes into waiting.

'_Gah, this is so boring.' _Ruby thinks to herself, throwing cursory glances around the room as students slowly trickle in and lay claim to the most comfortable positions. Looking over to where Ruby initially bunked down on her first day, she smiles at the thought of Yang following her not so subtle advice about picking the best spot. Nobody deserves to wake up on initiation day with bruises from awkwardly sleeping against a wooden windowsill. Well, nobody except assholes like Cardin.

Unbeknownst to Ruby, more than a few sets of eyes glance her way, both from students she had greeted personally like Russet and Blake, or students she had yet to actually greet. Of course, one set of eyes narrow in on her in anger. Cardin Winchester, the brute she publicly embarrassed, Ruby notes when she meets the pair of eyes glaring at her.

_'To be fair, he did deserve it.' _Ruby thinks with a smirk, before frowning at the memory of seeing Cardin and his team openly mocking Faunus. Just the idea brings Ruby to a simmering anger, at the sheer thought of him bullying a Faunus, especially ones who are here to defend people, just like him.

Of course, Ruby isn't naive enough to think that all Hunters would get along simply because they share a common enemy. If that were the case, then the world would be in a much better place. Heck, they'd probably have already built a new capital city somewhere. But no, people are petty, they fight each other over silly things like who has animal ears, or who earns more lien.

Shaking her head, Ruby then returns to her watching. Mostly an unnecessary formality, but it's still good to keep an eye on the students. Putting a mixed-gender group of hormonal 17-year-olds who are all far stronger than civilians in a single room, especially a single night before they are all due to go and fight a bunch of Grimm, is just asking for trouble.

Of course, despite her wishes to be allowed to simply relax against her comfortable wall and let the night drift by, several students seem to take it upon themselves to find out as much as they can about her, but without actually asking her. Relying on her hearing, Ruby listens in on the muttered conversations happening around the hall, before tuning out the ones that are generic and filled with talk of the Achieve Men, or, much to her dismay, weapon talk, and instead focusing on what the students seem to be saying about her.

"-way she's that strong, considering she had to sneak attack that Winchester guy to scare us all into submission."

"But what if she is that strong?"

"Guys, it doesn't matter. If she isn't strong, who cares? She'll get thrown out if she isn't capable enough, especially with Ozpin telling us she's the new combat instructor. If you really want to test her, I'm sure you'll get a chance to."

Smirking to herself, Ruby briefly considers inviting them to spar with her, before shaking the thought away and settling back in, but not before trying to stop herself from laughing at catching the end of one final conversation.

"-is, she's got to be strong if she's the Bloody Rose. Some of the stories I read on my scroll were gnarly. Apparently, one time the Bloody Rose paid a visit to a White Fang arsenal and turned it into a slaughterhouse. The story said that there was writing scrawled on the wall, something along the lines of 'Touch the Bloody Rose, and get stabbed by her thorns.' So, if you want to go fuck with her Cardin, by all means, but I ain't going near that with a 10-foot pole. Even if she ain't The Bloody Rose, she's still plenty tough, considering she'd have to be to get accepted in Beacon of all places."

"Wimps." Cardin says with a sneer and a final glare towards Ruby, before turning in for the night, trying to push the thoughts of the others out of his mind, and focus. Firstly on passing initiation, but more importantly, getting revenge on that short little upstart bitch for trying to embarrass him. His last sight before falling asleep being the image of her, leaning against that wall, her ever-present smirk simply a reminder of how she clearly doesn't belong in a school of hunters, and the faster he can remove her from the school, the faster he'd be rewarded for removing a parasite and a cow.

* * *

Elsewhere in the hall, Yang and Russet were settling down. Or rather, Russet was settling down, whereas Yang was passing the time ogling all the boys in the room, save for one, walking around with a goddamn bunny onesie, managing to completely shatter Yangs perfect mental image of what Beacon would be like, full of well-muscled and confident guys, and replacing it with, well, bunny onesies.

With a sigh, Yang looks away from the boy before he could corrupt her image any further, and focused instead on her friend, who seems content to doodle something in her little notebook. With a consideration of whether or not it's worth breaching her friends privacy, Yang shrugs her shoulders and rolls over to look at the notepad, abruptly placing her head atop Russet's shoulder, causing the girl to jump, drop her pen, and desperately try to cover her notepad, no no avail as Yang simply reaches over and nabs the book out from under her hands.

"Yang, I warn you now, give that back, or I will replace your shampoo with hair dye. Black hair dye." Russet says, frantically grabbing at the notepad, while Yang simply holds it above her head and smirks at Russet.

"Even you aren't brave enough to try that Russ. Now, what's in this that would be so important that you'd threaten my hair to get it back. Because I gotta know now. So either tell me or get embarrassed or angry when I simply look through it." With a frustrated sigh, Russet stops her flailing and simply looks Yang in the eyes, managing to be both angry and pleading at the same time, much to Yang's amusement.

Finally, she simply rolls her eyes and sits back down, crossing her legs. "To be honest Yang, at this point it doesn't matter. If you want to know that bad, I was sketching the new teacher. Considering she's just leaning on the wall over there and not moving, she's perfect for it." Russet then leans in close to Yang's ear, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Plus, have you seen her? I mean seriously, just look at her. Her arms are incredible, I wonder what she uses as a weapon. Oh, and her eyes!" Russet's voice suddenly picks up with enthusiasm, much to Yang's increasing amusement. "They're silver! Well, one of them is! I've never seen someone with a silver eye before, but they look awesome. And her other eye! I mean, it's black! BLACK! Who has a black eye?!"

Nodding along, Yang just tunes her friend out while she yammers on about 'the new teacher', internally trying to stop herself laughing. If Russet found out that Yang already knew Ruby, and that they'd have plenty of chances to get acquainted, especially considering Ruby is the only one Yang trusted to fix her gauntlets, she'd probably explode at the thought alone of Ruby spending time in Yang's dorm room, and considering how close Russet is to her, there'd be plenty of times where even if Russet were part of a different team, she'd be in Yang's dorm when Ruby came around to help Yang with her weapons.

"Alright, deep breaths there Michelangelo, I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to ask her to model for your artwork. I mean, she even said that she's willing to have a chat with anyone who wanted to come to her with problems. Maybe you could even pose your lack of willing models as a problem to her, and she'd help you just because of that, without you having to meekly explain that you want her as a model. Plus, she can't be that bad, she had the balls to call Glynda 'Stonewall'. I don't think even my uncle has called her that, not even in private."

Smiling at this, Russet holds her hand out for her notepad, which Yang gives her, before re-opening it and showing Yang the half-finished sketch. "Hey Yang, do you reckon she'd mind if I went over and actually asked her? It'd be easier if I could actually sit closer to her, but at the same time, what if she doesn't want me drawing her?"

Wrapping an arm around Russets shoulders, Yang leans in conspiratorially. "Oh, don't worry Russ, I'm sure she'd be happy to have you draw her. And hey, if she isn't, just draw her from a distance! It's not like you doodling in your book is going to affect her very much if you're over here!"

"B-But what if she doesn't like me? I mean, the first thing I said to her when I met her was 'pretty'. While she didn't exactly seem like she minded it, and took it as a compliment, what if she thinks I'm weird, or I have a thing for teachers, or-" Before Russet could continue, Yang puts a hand over her mouth, then shoves her in the direction of Ruby.

"Just. Go. Talk to her." Yang says, each word being punctuated by another gentle shove. "I promise, if she doesn't let you draw her, I'll come over and talk with her. I reckon I could persuade her to let you draw her, from a distance at least. But you have to at least try first, without my assistance.

Glancing back at Yang one final time, Russet sets her shoulders, straightens her back, and makes her way over to Ruby, while Yang watches, hands on hips and a smile on her face.

"Don't say I never do anything useful for you, Ruby."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hiya everyone!**

**Now, I don't like this, but I feel it needs to be said. This story is going to slow down a lot. I still enjoy writing it, don't get me wrong, but I just don't enjoy it nearly as much as Crimson Dovah. So, expect new chapters roughly every Sunday, and to be honest, there'll probably be a few weeks where I just skip a Sunday and leave a 2-week gap between uploads instead.**

**Each chapter will be roughly 1.5k-2k words, since I want to focus on my other story. Sorry to those of you who would prefer more of this story, but I'm just not as enthusiastic as I'd like to be, and I worry that my lack of enthusiasm will spill over into the story, and make it inferior to what I'd want to write.**

**Now, that isn't to say I'll stop writing the story, I just prefer writing Crimson Dovah right now. Speaking of which, that story will have chapters every 3-5 days usually. So if you like the sound of Ruby Rose in Skyrim as a baby dragon, go check it out!**

**On with the story...**

_**Chapter 5 **_

_**Wait, seriously? 5 chapters already?! Time flies.**_

* * *

'_This is a surprisingly comfortable wall.' _Ruby thought to herself, glancing back to make sure she was, in fact, leaning on a wall, and not some unfortunate student's baggage. Of course, such a comfortable post was something fate clearly hadn't intended for Ruby to enjoy alone, given what she was seeing, whilst gazing over the heads of the assembled students, and laughing to herself quietly at just how stupid those boys looked, posturing for attention from the girls, many of whom could absolutely kick those guys asses, present company included of course.

But, ignoring that, Ruby instead focused on the girl who was slowly approaching her, through glances over her shoulder towards none other than Yang. While Ruby had told Yang that she'd probably speak with her friend and see about training her to work on Ember Celica for her, this was a touch too soon for that, considering initiation hadn't even started! Who knows, maybe none of those students would make it through initiation this year. However, upon closer inspection, the girl was actually carrying a notepad, so maybe she wanted pointers about something. Heaven knows that Yang always had something or another to ask Ruby whenever she visited Qrow's family on Patch. And while she didn't exactly owe her anything, Ruby just couldn't say no to a girl coming up to her, notepad clutched in one hand, trying to gaze at anything other than her.

Yang had taught her well in the art of puppy-eyes, considering she was on the receiving end of them often enough. But, such thoughts were pushed aside as Ruby focused away from Yang and onto the girl approaching her, slightly taken aback by just how similar to Olive this girl looked. But, before that kind of thought could rear its head, Ruby clamped down fast on it. Breaking down thinking about old teammates wouldn't be a good look for her first night around these new students. Even if it was fully justified, that's the kind of respect you'd never get back.

"U-uh, excuse me, Miss Rose, c-can I ask you a question?" The new girl, Russet, if memory served correctly, timidly asked.

Deciding to play ball, Ruby first tried to lighten the tension a bit. "Well, since you already did, I think your quota's up there Russet." She said with a smile, inwardly squealing at the blush and embarrassment practically written in marker over the girls face. It took all of her self control to not just hug the girl in front of her for being too cute. "But, I guess I can raise your question and answer limit! So, Russ, can I call you Russ? Great!" Ruby yelled, managing to startle Russet who hadn't even begun to say anything. "Now, what did you want to ask me?" She asked with a tilt of the head.

Sighing to herself and attempting to calm herself down after desperately keeping up with Ruby and her insane speed of talking, Russet took a good few breaths before responding. "W-well, I was just sketching, and Yang came over, I think I told you about her when I met you, and she told me about how I should just come over and talk, and then I tried to argue about it in a reasonable fashion and she just shoved me over this way, in that way she does when her head is into something and she won't accept no for an answer!"

Placing a hand on her shoulder, Ruby solemnly nods to her, trying to convey both the idea that she understands her pain of dealing with Yang, but also the idea to hurry up with whatever her question was since at this point she was running off on unknown tangents.

"A-anyway, I wanted to ask whether I could sit like..." Glancing around, Russet then points out a random patch of ground, causing Ruby to raise an eyebrow in question, "around there, and sketch you?" Before Ruby could even react, Russet then clasped her hand. "Please, I just want to sketch you, I mean, I sketch a lot, and you looked awesome earlier, and while I kinda wish I could sketch that awesome scythe it'd be a bad idea to draw it in here, so I figured I could make do, but doing it from over there is bad since I can't get details, and I saw the scars and figured they'd look cool as well, but-"

Stopping the girl before she could continue her tangent, and again clamping down on unbidden memories bubbling up about the scars, Ruby simply squeezed her hand a little, getting the girl to stop babbling about things and focus on her again. "Look, Russet, I really don't care if you sketch me, honestly I'm flattered, and as long as you aren't literally an inch from my face with a magnifying glass trying to spot tiny differences, I don't really mind you sitting nearby to get a better view. Just try not to be too loud, considering people are meant to be going to sleep."

Before Russet could even open her mouth to say anything, Ruby continued, a smirk quirked on her face. "Now, while I said people are meant to be sleeping, I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say you should be lying in a bedroll trying to get sleep constantly. My first night in here was spent leaning over on that windowsill, and I gave up on the illusion of getting a nice nights sleep after a few minutes, so instead I just people-watched. A surprising number of people were doing exactly that, and in the end, a lot of people just stayed awake for a while doing whatever they felt like. Kind of like how you're sketching. I know that at least 10% of all the people in here right now are planning on doing the exact same things as the year I was here, whatever they feel is a good use of their time."

With a smile, Ruby then closed her eyes, leaning against the wall, listening as Russet walked away and settled down in her selected spot to begin her sketching. Peeking one eye open to look at the girl, with her tongue stuck out as she debated the best way to begin drawing her from closer up, Ruby couldn't help but let a few stray thoughts about her old team slip through the cracks, and despite fighting it, let a single teardrop roll down her cheek slowly. Fortunately for her, Ruby never wore makeup, so there wasn't a clear line running down her cheek for people to see.

But, unfortunately, whilst a cursory glance wouldn't reveal the tear track, Ruby was now being carefully looked at by Russet, who could never miss such a detail. Almost immediately, Russet visibly stiffened, though Ruby had since shut her eye again, so she missed it, thought of why Ruby was crying blitzing through her mind. Finding she couldn't think any real reason as to why Ruby was crying, Russet decided to just continue her sketch, since surely, if Ruby was that upset with her sketching, she wouldn't have allowed Russet to sit near her and draw.

Deciding on that, Russet then began her art in earnest, attempting to pay as little attention to the faint tear track on Ruby's cheek, and instead focus on other areas, like the scars adorning both her arms, or the beautiful silver of her eye, contrasting with the black of her other eye, though with her eyes closed she had to draw them from memory. It helped that she had gotten so close, allowing her to see those eyes up close...

And immediately the blush Russet had fought down came back in earnest at just how closely Russet had gotten to Ruby when talking to her, mentally facepalming at her over-enthusiasm for chatting about drawing and allowing herself to practically be hugging the poor teacher, who must have been feeling rather awkward that a student was getting so close to them.

Though, thinking about it, Ruby did say she wanted to be seen more on the level of the students than the teacher, and be someone they could approach with problems as someone far closer to their age than usual. Though when she said that, she probably meant that she'd want to be approached, but at a reasonable distance, not with inches between them. Thinking about it, Russet then decided that, since the teacher hadn't said anything, that kind of distance was okay for her, since it would be what close friends would use to talk with each other about secrets and gossip, so she'd have to be comfortable, otherwise no student would use her as a confidant.

And, with that, the two girls found comfort in their activities, Ruby in occupying her mind with thoughts of anything but her lost team, and Russet happily sketching away, whilst Yang simply glanced over occasionally with a smirk and a whisper to herself.

"Told you so Russ."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_

* * *

"It's morning, It's mo-" Nora began, only to suddenly receive a pillow to the face, courtesy of one new teacher, watching on and trying to frown at the excitable girl, but failing miserably as a smirk tugged at the corners of her lips.

"I know it's exciting to be having your initiation today, but please be wary of every other student with different routines to you. You'd hate it if I woke you up with an air horn, wouldn't you?" Ruby said, settling back down with a smile.

The orange-haired girl cocked her head, before shaking it vigorously with a grin. "No, that sounds like an awesome way to wake up! Hey Ren, we should do that! Then even if we get stuck with some lazy bones they'll have no excuse to not get up and make pancakes!" The girl yelled loudly, much the chagrin of the other students who were trying to get an extra few minutes of sleep in.

Shaking her own head at the girl, Ruby threw a sympathetic glance towards the boy who was currently being shaken hard enough to click his teeth together, who returned her gaze with a smile, but could get no words out before being dragged off by the girl, who at that point was talking about sloths or something.

Rubbing her eyes, Ruby threw a quick glance around the room, noting with mild annoyance that many of the students seemed to be completely unready for waking up at this hour, many of whom were looking at her as if she was the entire cause of this new situation. But, taking it in stride, Ruby simply looked for the few students she could bother to remember.

Yang was, understandably, still asleep, considering she could sleep through Patch's storms and wake up none the wiser if nobody told her what happened. Ruby could count on one hand the number of times Yang had actually woken up during one of those storms, and still have enough digits left to hold a cup.

Weiss, on the other hand, was apparently already missing from the hall. One of the ones to watch, that one. Ruby had taken the time to do a little research on their resident Schnee, and held pretty high hopes that the girl would turn around if put on a good team. Ruby hadn't been deliberately jabbing at the girl for her own amusement. Calling her nicknames seemed a pretty good way to acclimatize her to being on a team of Hunters, since, if the girl was particularly unlucky, or lucky in certain perspectives, she'd get somebody who could temper her frigidity with open-ness, and get her to actually open up. Talking to her yesterday felt to Ruby like talking to a damn robot.

Blake, that black-clad girl who acted like a damn ninja, was still sat in her original spot, looking to the world as if she'd never stopped reading, an idea Ruby could truly get behind. She seemed quite...introverted wasn't the right term, just isolated, but willingly. She deliberately put herself far out of reach of most people, practically exuding an aura of "Try it, I dare you." around herself.

And then, there was Russet. The girl had, somehow, managed to stay asleep throughout Ruby's conversation with the other girl, letting her purple hair fall around her, playing out across her sleeping bag like a fan. And her book had fallen from her hands, landing open nearby, with a piece of charcoal slightly smudging an empty part of the page.

Peering at the book, Ruby internally debated about whether or not to look at the artwork, finally deciding that, since Russet said she was drawing her anyway, she could see how exactly Russet had gone about it.

It seemed like Russet had simply gone for keeping almost everything in, not trying to hide any of the numerous scars adorning her exposed arms, though she'd evidently avoided drawing too much attention to them, instead focusing the viewer's attention towards her face, and the singular faded scar curling over her eye, ending in a jagged hook along her jaw.

But, Ruby noted with a little surprise and a small smile, Russet had spotted and included in vivid detail the absolutely tiny rose emblem on her chest, which Ruby had always used as an anchor whenever her thoughts began to overwhelm her.

That, however, was as far as Ruby could get with her snooping, as the girl began waking up, rubbing her eyes, and looking blearily towards her with a fog-filled gaze and a small smile.

"Morning Russet." Ruby said lightly, trying to gauge the girl's reaction, both to see if she'd been caught and to see whether she'd actually be able to get any of these students to see her as more like a friend than as a teacher. Of course, she was still a teacher, and had to have some level of propriety, but, Ruby thought with a smile to herself, screw that!

If it'd mean these kids would come to her with their actual problems, and not just make excuses and bottle themselves up, Ruby would throw parties in the ballroom every week for the whole time they'd be in Beacon. And if she had to sacrifice her 'propriety' to do so, she'd gladly do it a hundred times over.

"Good morning Miss R-Ruby." Russet corrected quickly at the look on Ruby's face from her formal greeting. But, after a few moments, the teachers face lit back up and she gestured towards the book, a smirk on her face.

"So, spent a lot of time looking at my chest, eh?" She said, gesturing towards her rose tattoo, and watching with a suppressed giggle as the poor girl turned redder than a cherry. She decided to give the girl a reprieve, patting her on the shoulder and smiling at her. "Don't worry about it, and don't bother making excuses. Don't forget, I'm literally 3 years older than you, I know most of the stuff you all are thinking...for the girls at least." She added with a shudder, watching as the guys in the room began their apparently obligatory flexing, and giggling when she saw the boy with the bunny onesie. That image just didn't fit in with its surroundings, like a rabbit running with a pack of beowolves, or an elephant swimming with a leviathan.

"Uhh, r-right." Russet said oh so eloquently, before looking back at Ruby expectantly.

"What?" Ruby said with a raised eyebrow.

Stubbing her toe against the ground, Russet looked between her and her book, before opening it to her drawing and thrusting it in Ruby's face. "Well? What did you th-think?" She said, desperately refusing the urge to kick herself for her damned stammering, not spotting Ruby's smirk until it was too late, and she was wrapped up in a tight bear hug.

"Aww, I thought it was adorable! Though I don't like just how much focus you put onto my face, I could see you did it because the only other things to look at were my arms. And sure, scars are cool, but every good Hunter has at least a few scars somewhere, shows they made a mistake and were still great enough to come back alive. That's why I have so many! Because I. Am. AWESOME!" She said with a triumphant cackle, waking up everybody still trying to get to sleep, including Yang, who bolted upright at the sound with a shudder.

Said girl then turning towards the source of the sound, repressing the urge to shiver and instead focusing her ire into one question. "Really Ruby? 5 more minutes!". An argument which was quickly snubbed out when Ruby simply pointed towards the clock, and snapping her fingers, drawing the attention of everybody still inside the Ballroom with a bright smile.

"Because you all had a nice bright wake-up call from another student about 5 minutes ago, and that means time to wake up. Plus, I'm sure you don't want to miss this, probably the biggest event of your life so far, and there's only two people in this room who I know has had a bigger event, so better safe than sorry, I don't want to be blamed when the students still in this room miss their initiation! So-" Ruby paused to take a deep breath, bellowing out a loud and commanding "**GET A MOVE ON!**", jolting the entire hall to action, though she quickly snagged Russet by the collar before she could run back to her sleeping spot, dropping her book in her hands and patting her on the head.

"Don't want to lose that, huh?" She said, giving her a gentle shove towards her things.

"Oh, uh, thank you Mi-...R-Ruby!" Russet said, darting off to go and gather up her things, leaving Ruby to simply watch her pack up her stuff, before turning away and exiting the hall, rubbing her hands together gleefully.

"Time for the hunting to begin."

* * *

**Next Chapter: 6th of July**


	7. Chapter 7

**Phew, feels like more than a week since I last wrote a Watching Rose chapter. But, I made my bed, and I'll sleep in it, weekly updates for all!**

**Though, I will probably increase the length of the chapters to make up for the much larger gap, and shorten Crimson Dovah chapters to equalize the workload. I am now kind of curious, would you prefer longer chapters or more regular chapters?**

**I mean, if I take a week to write a chapter of Crimson Dovah, it'd be probably around 15k words, but writing 3 chapters a week means each is only around 3.5/4k words. Would you all rather this story had maybe 5k word chapters every week, or 1.5k word chapters every couple of days? Though I make no promises, I'll try to go along with what you all want.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 7**_

* * *

"Hey Oz, what are you using this year? I hope it isn't chess pieces again." Ruby said with a smirk, rolling her head away from the forest ahead of them, and towards the headmaster, who only sipped at his mug, pretending to have missed what she said entirely.

Sighing to herself, Ruby let her attention wander to the students about to take their first foray into the true life of a huntsman. Some of them have already seen Grimm before, and maybe a few would have even fought and slain them before, but none of the students she'd seen had ever been a part of a true team, nor did any of them, with one exception, have any scars from fighting, a clear difference between her, with her heavily scarred arms and marred face.

But, Ruby thought to herself happily, with the reactions the few students she had the chance to speak to had to her, she was hopeful that they would look past those and see her as somebody they could truly connect with. It would be a shame for any of them to bottle up anything inside, rather than speak with her about such things.

Gazing back over the forest when the Headmaster made it clear he wasn't going to discuss it, Ruby let her attention be drawn to the cliff she had her own Initiation end at. It wasn't her fault that a Deathstalker decided to take a nap in that cave, though Oobleck definitely didn't seem to care about that if the never-ending rant about destroying ancient ruins was anything to go by. But, she thought to herself, what else could she do? Crescent Rose couldn't kill it, and none of the others were capable of doing much either. Dropping that Temple straight onto it was the fastest, safest, and easiest way to kill the damned thing.

Even if it did end up crumbling the entire ruin into nothing more than an unsalvageable pile of rubble.

* * *

"These team-mates will be with you for the rest of your time at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to-"

Ruby and Yang simultaneously tuned out everything Ozpin was saying. Ruby had already talked with Yang about what the teams were like, though she couldn't speak a word of how they were actually assigned, smirking to herself every time Yang tried to bribe her with things to figure it out.

Though, as Ruby thought more on the actual assignment of teams, she couldn't help but smirk at how devious Ozpin actually was. Looking at the launch-pads so innocently sitting under each of the student's feet, she noted how several of them were slightly askew, pointing very slightly in different directions. Considering how pristine and level most things at Beacon were, Ruby deduced that Ozpin actually controlled the selection far more closely than she'd ever actually realized, slightly changing flight-paths and orientations to encourage students together, or further apart.

Though, if her own abilities were any indication, some students undoubtedly mixed up the status quo, going to whoever the felt like. She could remember one initiation she'd heard about, where several pairs capable of impressive mid-air control just flew at each other, ignoring the trajectory of the launch-pads entirely, much to the amusement of the students in the school, hearing that they'd pretty much ignored where they were meant to be thrown.

Her train of thought was cut off by a rather loud, and very high-pitched cacophony of various people simultaneously yelling "WHAT?" at the Headmaster.

Clearing his throat, Ozpin, with a wry grin hiding behind his mug, repeated himself. "As I said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." He said briskly, covering his smile with another long sip of his beverage, whilst the students ahead of him first looked to him and Ruby in disbelief, and after seeing the smug grin and nod on her face, at each other, desperately all hoping to find someone they could actually work with.

Weiss decided then and there that maybe going to a brand new combat school where she knew nobody was a pretty bad idea.

Blake just shook her head at the entire idea, as it was easily abused by anybody, like her for instance, capable of hiding from the idiots and picking out a competent partner.

Yang looked ready to run over to Ruby and punch her for not warning her about this. Sure, she had friends who came over from Signal, but aside from Russet and maybe a handful of others, none of those friends were people she'd want to spend the next 4 years on a team with. And considering the look on her face, Ruby knew this little fact for a long time, and was particularly amused whenever Yang had tried to find it out.

Russet, on the other hand, looked a bit like she was a rabbit which had just run onto a motorway, which was currently experiencing a Grimm attack and a pile-up, all while a volcano was exploding in the distance. She knew only two people in Beacon, and only one of those two people were even eligible for a team-mate! Looking down the line of students she could pair with, she cringed when she realized that she really should have taken Yang's advice and actually met some people.

She did know people, of course. She'd bumped into them, said sorry, and moved on quickly, but she spoke to them, at least a little bit, so that counted, damn it!

But, before she could even consider picking somebody to try and team up with, Ozpin had already continued on with his speech, wrapping it up swiftly and not accepting any questions or second thought about his team-making decisions. Telling all the students to take their positions, he allowed one question from the blond-haired boy, a Mr Arc if he was remembering correctly. Nodding towards the boy, he watched as the boy began to stammer out something about landing, more interested in the rather hilarious way some of the students were deciding to launch themselves. One of them, the same one Ruby had terrified in her, to put it frankly, amusing entrance, decided to take a pose not unlike somebody attempting a tackle.

Why that would help him fly, Ozpin could not fathom, though he was not one to judge. Perhaps the boy had some kind of tackling ability.

Or, he watched with a smile, the boy was just an idiot, as he was launched and immediately lost his poise, going from ready to flailing in a matter of seconds.

Turning back to the boy, who was still stammering on about parachutes or something, he simply smiled when the boy was launched into the forest, before looking at Ruby, sighing and nodding to her.

Though, he thought to himself, watching as Ruby disintegrated into her signature rose petals to fly after the boy, said boy was lucky he had been noticed before entering the school, otherwise he'd be meeting a very messy end in a few moments.

* * *

"AIEEEEE!" Jaune screamed, pinwheeling through the air uncontrollably, watching as his horizontal momentum slowed and he started approaching the ground at a remarkably high speed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get over the fact that he was a massive, total, and complete idiot for even trying this.

'Oh, it'll be fine' He thought angrily as he watched a few petals fly in front of him, but not caring too much over his imminent death. 'Just use these fake transcripts, get into combat school, and it'll all work out. AND NOW I'M GOING TO DIE!' he thought, incapable of actually talking aside from his constant scream.

Unbeknownst to him, Ruby was watching him fly, noting with a shake of her head how the boy was clearly an absolute idiot. Surely after watching several of those students be flung off a cliff, he would have stepped off his pad. It was literally a choice between admitting he did something stupid, or be flung with no abilities off a cliff to his death. What kind of stupid idiot would choose death?

But, with a bemused smile, Ruby noted where he would land, and reformed herself in that area, preparing to slow his descent from a lethal one to just a bit painful.

Hey, if he was going to be an idiot and attempt suicide by launch-pad, he'd better have some bruising to pay for it.

Gathering her power, Ruby hurled herself in Jaune's direction, watching as he approached, still panicking and with no plan of his own, before reversing her own momentum to match his, grabbing him, and lowering their speed to something approaching acceptable, before letting him drop the last few feet on his own, watching as he rolled across the clearing, banging against the floor and bumping into a few rocks, giving him a few cuts and scrapes, but nothing serious.

'Serves him right for being such an idiot.' She thought to himself. The idiot didn't even have an aura, and pulling a stunt like that, even with aura, takes at least some training. Though before she could think too much farther on that, she watched as a spear flew through the air in the place Jaune would have been, or rather where his clothes would have been, and smirking when she realized that she just messed with Pyrrha Nikos's planned partner. Nobody else had a weapon quite like that spear.

Leaving Jaune where he was, Ruby hopped up the tree the spear was embedded in, yanking it out swiftly and throwing it into the ground next to Jaune, before retreating back into the treeline to watch the Initiation from closer up, both because she had better seating from up close, and also if Jaune got into any major trouble, she could interfere. Ozpin had already talked to her about some guy called Hazel who blamed him when his sister died, and he was definitely looking to avoid the same thing happening to the Arc family. One revenge-bent lunatic was enough for Ozpin.

But, Ozpin didn't say she couldn't bring cookies along to snack on, so that's what she did, sat up in her tree, watching with a smile as Pyrrha walked through the thick brush surrounding Jaune, greeting him with a smile and a tilted head, when she looked between Jaune on the floor, sprawled out and a large dirt furrow dug where he'd stopped with the spear beside him, and the tree that said spear should have hit. Her aim was dead on, and the only thing that looked like it might have gotten in the way were a bunch of rose petals.

Pushing the question out of mind, she extended a hand to the earnest boy, with a beaming smile and a chipper greeting.

"Still got room on your team Jaune?"

* * *

**And that's a wrap for this week.**

**Just a reminder, please leave a review telling me what you'd prefer. Once a week chapters of maybe 4/5k words, or chapters every 3/4 days that are 1.5/2k words. I'd appreciate knowing, and I'll decide on what to do next saturday!**

**Next Chapter: 13th of July**


	8. Chapter 8

**Alrighty then! ****Seems the people have spoken, and the majority of people want to have weekly chapters that are longer, and I shall attempt to provide! ****Though, I feel like I should be a bit more transparent about how I write these, even if it may make some of you go "What?" at me a bit.**

**I don't write these over the week, these chapters were only 1.5k/2k words, and I wrote them out in about an hour. Now, because I'm making these longer now, to be probably slightly longer than they were, I will start writing them out at least a few days before Saturday, but before now, I wrote the whole thing on Saturday in ****an hour or so. ****So, sorry about that, if any of you thought that I u****ploade****d weekly and painstakingly went through it to make it perfect, I just didn't really feel like writing it more than that.**

**-Small Warning- There will be swearing in this story. I try to stay away from swearing in Crimson Dovah, but this story is rated M, not T, and so I'm going to be a bit more liberal in the vulgarity. Just a heads up, so anybody coming from the relatively clean Crimson Dovah story and into this won't be surprised when characters start swearing.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 8**_

* * *

Ozpin gazed over the forest, his eyes flicking from tree to tree, occasionally glancing down at his scroll to keep track of students he wasn't able to pick out of the forest, most notably the Belladonna girl, and, quite surprisingly, the Jaune and Nikos pair, though that was understandable, they'd entered the same cave Ruby had entered during her own initiation, bringing a smile to his face when he recalled how furious Oobleck was at the poor girl when she ruined those ruins even more just to kill it.

Though, frowning to himself, he recalled that they'd never figured out how an Ancient Grimm had managed to hide away in that cave with nobody noticing it, not even the faculty, until Miss Rose had stumbled across it with her partner, and were promptly chased across the forest.

But, pushing such old questions aside, he returned his attention to the ongoing trials sprouting out across the forest, most notably miss Xiao-Long taking two fully-grown Ursa on by herself, and the subsequent interruption by the aforementioned Miss Belladonna, forming their own little team.

There was also the formation of Mr Ren and Miss Valkyrie, though it was hardly surprising, the pair had been launched near each other, as they would act as balances for each other perfectly. Mr Ren would be able to reign in his friend if she were to get too excitable, and, subsequently, Miss Valkyrie would be able to draw him into participating with his team.

Looking to his side, he could see Glynda frowning at her own scroll, fussing over the pairing of Miss Nikos and Mr Arc. Clearing his throat, her eyes raised to meet his, vibrant Green meeting impassive Brown, as he sighed.

"Glynda, what's done is done. Miss Nikos clearly had planned to team with Mr Arc, and, if it weren't for Ruby intervening, she would have had him stuck to that tree, staking her claim to the boy."

Rubbing her eyes, Glynda turned away from the Headmaster to instead look again at her scroll, and the replay of the spear flying through the air again. "I understand that Headmaster, I just can't fathom what she saw in that boy, nor what you or Miss Rose see in him. He clearly has no training, if his inept landing was any indication, nor does he seem particularly savant at learning."

"I know, but when have I ever lead you astray? When it involves students, of course." He quickly added, when Glynda opened her mouth to protest, only to snap it shut again at that last comment. "Just trust in Ruby and my own judgment."

Shaking her head, Glynda threw a last glance at the recording of Ruby saving the boy from death.

"I just hope you're right about this Ozpin."

Chuckling, he turned his focus back to his scroll, watching as Ruby glided through the air as a seemingly innocuous cloud of rose petals, only ever drawing slight suspicion from the students in the forest.

"I hope so too."

* * *

Ruby wasn't very happy.

Scratch that, Ruby was in fact absolutely livid. She wanted to take her scythe and ram it straight into the bastard who had annoyed her, but she wasn't allowed to, much to her dismay, if the repeated begs to teach the prick a lesson was any indication.

She had been using her semblance to glide around the forest, watching over a few students in particular, and getting some enjoyment at watching them react to her, as it wasn't every day that a cloud of blood-red petals breezed by.

Of course, Yang just smiled and waved at her when she saw the petals breeze by, and Ruby decided upon seeing her partners look of confusion, to materialize for a moment, just long enough to bewilder the black-clad girl Yang was now partnered with, before dropping back into her petals and breezing off in another direction, smiling to herself at the raucous laughter from Yang, and the groan of embarrassment from the other girl when she realized what happened.

Gliding around, Ruby had come across the same boy she had so hilariously embarrassed, and she watched him maul his way through several Beowolves with his mace, noting that, while he was definitely strong of arm, he wasn't much of a thinker, choosing to simply take hits rather than avoid damage, something that should have been drilled into his head already, though considering he was a Winchester, a family which privately tutored, it might be a given that he was more developed in other skills, most notably his boasting.

But, what really set her off was some of the remarks he made to his partner, a boy with a shaved head and garish mohawk, about both her and Yang, remarking about how she was a faker or some such nonsense, but then he had to go and call Yang a bimbo and a slut, and something about how he'd still do her.

She managed to relieve some of her anger by surrounding the boy in her petals, and whispering "Yes, very fake." into his ear, before gusting off again, leaving the boy quivering and wielding his mace like a baton, whirling it around at any petals that got near to him, yelling at her, and calling her all manner of stupid and ill-conceived insults. But she still wanted to swing her scythe at him, at least a little. Not enough to break his aura, but still enough to be painful.

Thinking on this, Ruby realized with a groan that Ozpin would probably not be very happy with her if she directly interfered with a students chances of success for some revenge. Rubbing her petals together to imitate her hands, Ruby thought gleefully about what she could get up to instead, considering he was going to be in the first year classes, and as such, she could throw him against people he can't beat in combat class, and watch him squirm.

Snapping herself back out of her devious thinking, the Crimsonette did a double-take when she stopped her musing to notice what was going on in front of her. In her drifting, she had gone closer to Yang's friend, Russet, as well as the Schnee. And, while she did appreciate that the white girl had tried to apologize her, it was still mighty annoying how she had just jumped to conclusions like that!

Swirling her petals around the nearby trees, she watched the pair as they traipsed through the forest, though it seemed they definitely did not want to be remotely close to each other if the crossed arms and distinct lack of conversation was anything to go by.

Materializing herself, both for comfort, as staying in her petals form for long periods felt incredibly disorienting, and because it'd let her use her scope to get a closer view, Ruby set herself up close to the pair, occasionally flitting from tree to tree using her own strength, rather than her semblance, and simply observed the pair as they made their way in completely the wrong direction.

Looking closely, it was clear that Russet knew this, and despite repeated attempts to tell the girl she was following, the Schnee, in her infinite wisdom, seemed to reject even the notion that she wasn't walking the correct way, which made Ruby mentally push her down in her ranking of the girl, simultaneously raising Ruby's thoughts on Russet, who was clearly trying to be helpful, even if the other girl was just ignoring her entirely.

Thinking back on what Ozpin had specifically told her, or hadn't told her, Ruby realized that he'd accidentally, though knowing Ozpin it may have even been deliberately, left her a nice, big, juicy loop-hole. Since he'd nodded to give her permission to interfere with Jaune's descent, mostly to avoid his death, surely that means he gave her permission to mess with the initiation.

Nodding to herself, and mentally promising herself a cookie for such smart thinking, Ruby decided that, if in the next 5 minutes, the pair were still walking the wrong way, she would interfere. Observing their path, Ruby worked out roughly where they'd end up in 5 minutes of walking, setting herself up in a tree nearby and planning her grand reveal, or as grand as can be considering she wasn't exactly going to be expected.

* * *

"It's this way. It has to be this way."

Sighing, Russet just glared at the back of the girl she'd had the misfortune of being partnered with. But, before she could utter a word, the girl then pivoted in place, looking back at her, before turning again in her original direction and continuing. Swallowing her anxiety, Russet finally managed to pipe up "Uhh, it's not that way...", only to immediately cringe inwardly when the girl just stared at her over her shoulder, before huffing and, apparently ignoring her words entirely, continued on in her original direction, leaving Russet to just stare after her, before sighing again and shrugging, following the easy path the girl made through the brush of the forest.

Entering a small clearing, the two girls glanced around, but, other than a small pile of petals, which, to Russet's amusement, was probably a sign that Ruby had come through this area, though when or going where was a question to her, the clearing was devoid of anything living, aside from grass and the odd bug. Deciding it was a good a chance as ever, Russet laid a hand on the girl's shoulder, and glared at her when she dismissively shrugged her shoulder and began walking.

"Listen, Princess, I don't know if you know this, but we're meant to be partners! You know, equal, level with each other. So if you could pull that stick out of your ass and goddamn LISTEN" Russet took a moment to breathe, and smile inwardly at the shocked look on the girls face, "I could tell you that we're going the wrong damn way."

Holding up a hand to stop the girl from trying to argue, Russett then points upwards, towards the sun, smirking at the girl all the while, though it was offset by her levelled glare. "It's still morning, so the sun is to the east. We're meant to be heading north/north-east, and you've been taking us west, away from the sun. Now, maybe if you got off your high horse and listened to me, we wouldn't have wasted so much time walking this damn way!"

Placing her hands on her hips, she all but dared the girl to respond to her but was stopped when she heard gentle applause from behind and above her, which was vaguely where the other girl was actually looking. Spinning around quickly, Russet all but fell over at the figure stood in the trees above them, petals slowly swirling around them. What really made Russet feel uneasy though was the massive smile on her face, like she'd heard the worlds best joke and wanted to share it with the world.

"You know, if you two spent another minute walking the wrong way, I would have done that for you, though it would have been at both of you. Still, good job Russ, I'd listen to her if I were you, Snow Angel. Well, my job was done for me, best of luck to you both, not many relics left now!"

With a wave, Ruby jumped from her perch, shocking both girls, who watched as she fell, before, just as she was going to hit the ground, she disappeared into a cloud of petals, looking to the world as if she'd fallen into a hole in the floor. But, as both girls observed, they watched the petals swirl together and begin lazily yet swiftly drifting away, vaguely in the direction they were meant to go.

Rubbing her forehead at Ruby's antics, Russet turned back to her partner, who was seemingly frozen in place, snapping her fingers to get her attention, which she only got slowly, as the girl was too focused on the direction their new teacher left in.

"Well, shall we go?"

* * *

**Okay, I feel this chapter was pretty strong. As I said in the beginning authors note, instead of being written on the day, this one I wrote over 3 separate days, and it feels way more satisfying sitting here having finished it over a much longer period of time.**

**Also, somebody brought up that this chapter is only a little longer than the others, I don't plan to suddenly make these into 4k long chapters, I'm gonna slowly increase the length, as where they are now is a comfortable length for me to write. They will get longer though, I promise.**

**Next Chapter: 20th of July**


	9. Chapter 9

**Gonna put it out there now, writing these chapters so early is weird. This author note is being written on Sunday, as in, a day after I posted chapter 8, and it feels incredibly strange having this begin so far ahead of when I upload it.**

**Now I'm curious, everyone who writes their own fanfiction, how do you go about writing this stuff? Do you just bang it out in an hour or two? Do you plan it out, having multiple notepad documents of ideas and tangents to go off on? I mean, my first chapter of this was planned out, noting each and every major event in minor detail, and then I scrapped it and turned what was going to be one long chapter into 6 separate chapters.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 9**_

* * *

The forest was rather calm, surprisingly enough, considering several dozen hunters-in-training were launched into it. Birds were still roosting, Deer were meandering, and Grimm were...being Grimm.

The idyllic scene was, therefore, as the laws of the Universe always dictates, immediately smashed when a high-pitched scream pealed across the forest, startling birds, sending Deer running, and agitating plenty of Grimm. Many of the students heard the scream, but all resolutely decided to ignore it, favoring an ideology of the strong survive over wasting time helping someone and sacrificing their chance at a relic.

"PYRRHA! A LITTLE HELP PLEASE!" Jaune yelled, running through the forest and desperately ducking, diving, and generally panicking, while the Grimm chasing him tried everything in the book, including just throwing the book at him, to hunt him down for disturbing its rest.

"Hold on Jaune!" Pyrrha yelled after him, watching as the Nevermore he'd managed to wake up waved its wings about like a frenzied animal, an analogy which was surprisingly apt for the situation. Shouldering Milo, Pyrrha steadied her aim, watching carefully and picking her moment, waiting for...there!

As the Nevermore reared its wings back to launch feathers at Jaune, Pyrrha fired, striking one of its 4 eyes and shattering it in an explosion of gore, drawing such a loud scream that she had to cover her ears to protect herself from the horrifyingly sound, imitating the mythical Nucklavee in volume.

Re-focusing on her target and removing her hands from her ears, Pyrrha watched as the Nevermore ignored Jaune, instead, it was focusing on the human so capable of causing injury, with 3 narrowed eyes watching her closely.

Without warning, the giant bird charged forwards, smashing down all obstacles and barely giving Pyrrha the chance to evade before snapping down with its beak, forcing Pyrrha to use Akouo to parry the bird, knocking its head away and uses its own momentum against itself, sending the Grimm flying past her and into a large tree with a screech of rage and pain.

"Well-" Pyrrha said, centering herself and watching the Grimm pick itself up, "-this is going to be fun." With a grin towards Jaune, who appeared to be caught between a mix of disbelief and awe, she charged back at the Nevermore with a yell.

* * *

At the same time, Yang and Blake were arriving at the ruins, looking at the...Remnant: The Game pieces? Walking up to one, Yang examined it closely, and concluded that there were definitely pieces from the board-game distributed across the pedestals, with several being empty, presumably by students who had beaten them there.

Grabbing one at random, Yang waved it towards her partner. "How 'bout a big old Beowolf?" She said cheerfully.

"Sure." Blake returned with a shrug. "Well, should we wait around here, or go straight back to the cliff?" She asked, glancing around and seeing nobody in the immediate vicinity.

"Hmm. It'd be nice to go back with Russet, and there weren't any rules saying we had to immediately come back, but Russet could have already been and gone and-oh hey there she is!" Yang interrupted herself to say, waving towards the treeline where the girl in question approached, being followed by none other than Weiss Schnee, Blake noted with irritation, fingers twitching towards Gambol Shroud, though she managed to fight the urge to attack her.

"Hey there Yang, guess who we ran into?" Russet said, hugging Yang quickly and stepping back to nod towards Blake and look towards the ruins, noting the Beowolf figurine in Yang's hand.

"Who? Wait no, don't tell me. It's someone I know, or you wouldn't have asked me, and someone you shouldn't have-...oh, you ran into Ruby huh? She show off to you? Honestly, every time she came to Patch she'd always show off to all the Signal kids, though I don't know if that was her doing it on her own or if Qrow put her up to it...oh well, doesn't matter. Did she tell you why she was in the forest? I mean, they did say that they wouldn't interfere right? So why would she be in the forest?" Yang quickly rattled off, only stopping when Russet put her hand over Yang's mouth to shut her up, and recoiling when Yang licked her hand.

"Gross Yang, real gross. To answer your questions...yes, no, yes, and I don't know." She replied, walking towards the ruins and noting that there were two of each figurine, and a single Beowolf figurine waiting. Putting it together, Russet picked up the other figure, smirking to herself that she'd figured out the little puzzle of how their teams were being formed, and turned back to the group, only to notice them all looking up at something in the sky.

Following their gaze, Russet had to stifle a giggle at the sight before them. On the back of a giant Nevermore was one Pyrrha Nikos, while a blonde boy was hanging from its talons, apparently torn between getting free and staying in its grasp, as he blanched whenever he looked down.

"He's gonna fall." Blake said.

"He'll be fine!" Russet replied happily, dutifully ignoring the fact that the Nevermore wasn't actually holding him at this point, he was simply clinging on for all he was worth. And, as they all watched, he lost his grip on the bird.

"He's falling."

With a roll of her eyes, Russet watched as Jaune fell, interested to see how exactly he was going to land, and surprised when she saw rose petals surrounding the boy, rubbing her eyes when she thought she could make out a form holding onto Jaune, gasping when she saw that Ruby was actually helping the boy out. Though it brought many questions to the forefront of her mind as she saw the woman materialize around him.

"I swear!" The entire group flinched at Ruby's yell. "That's twice now. Fall off one other high place and I'm letting you go splat." She continued quietly, scowling at the boy who was clutching to her body as if his life depended on it, which it kind of did.

"Sorry!" Jaune yelled back at her, far too focused on keeping his grip to care how angry she was with him. And slowly they approached the ground, allowing Ruby to drop him the last few feet, where he stumbled but managed to stay upright and not make a complete idiot of himself in front of the assembled girls, who were looking towards him, though he noted that they were all far more focused on his twice-savior than him, much to his mixture of dismay and joy.

"Well?" She asked at their gawking faces, watching a few of them flinch backwards, though Yang was just shaking her head, Russet had a gleam in her eyes, Weiss was just staring blankly, and Blake was focused behind her, rather than at her.

Straining her hearing, Ruby could make out the sounds of something heavy approaching. Whirling around whilst simultaneously laying a hand on Crescent Rose, Ruby watched the tree-line for motion and stepped backwards when an Ursa burst out of the trees with the loud orange-haired girl from earlier riding it like a rodeo clown, and stifling a laugh at the sight of the Ursa finally giving up the ghost with this girl riding it's back like a horse.

Smiling to herself, Ruby watched the girl hop off the now-disintegrating Ursa with a loud cry of "Aww, it's broken.", though her despair at the death of her mount was short, as she was distracted by the game pieces on their pedestals, picking up an Atlesian Battleship piece and singing "I'm Queen of the Battleship, I'm Queen of the-" and being cut off by her friends irritated yell, quickly darting to his side.

Whilst this was happening, Pyrrha was busily dealing with the Nevermore she had boarded, as she could now kill it safely without risking Jaune, jabbing Milo through one of the avian Grimm's eye-sockets and killing it in one swift thrust, riding the bird down to the ground and slowing her descent enough to land with a smooth roll, coming to land beside Jaune and Ruby, quickly scanning the area, and replacing her weapon on her back when she was confident in the areas security, though having Ruby stood there was probably security enough, it never hurt to be prepared. Plus, Pyrrha thought to herself, Ruby would probably only step in if a Goliath showed up or one of them was about to be killed, like Jaune almost was.

Shaking her head, Pyrrha focused herself on the relics up in the ruins, gesturing towards them for Jaune to go and pick one, while she kept an eye out. Meanwhile, Russet and Yang were talking about something or another, Blake was leaning against a tree reading a book, Weiss was still staring at Ruby, who was gazing over them all and smirking about something. Biting the bullet, Pyrrha piped up.

"Uhh, Miss Rose?" She said, waiting until the woman was satisfied with her observation before she turned her monochromatic eyes onto the young Mistralian gladiator with a smile. "I just...it was you earlier that saved Jaune, right?" At the woman's nod, Pyrrha continued. "Why?"

Ruby almost took a step back in surprise. "Why? Pyrrha, you noticed as well didn't you? Jaune didn't have an active aura. If I let him fly, he wouldn't be here right now. And, while I'm sure you're a good throw and your javelin wouldn't have hit him, it would have probably hamstrung him. He'd be going from practically terminal velocity to stopped in a single second at most. With no aura to protect him, your efforts would have still ended up killing him."

Pyrrha raised her hands up to her mouth, as she realized that, by trying to catch him with Milo, she might have killed Jaune, though Ruby was quick to grab her hands. "Pyrrha, he would have died on landing. If I didn't slow his fall, he would have died either way. It's not your fault. Just, think before you act, huh?" At Pyrrhas nod she continued "Good. Now, it seems your partner has decided on a piece, and it appears he likes Battleships. I should probably head off, good luck getting back to the cliff, though I doubt anything in the forest could pose much of a challenge to you lot."

"Miss-" Ruby cut her off by placing her finger against her lips.

"Ruby, please. Being called Miss Rose just feels wrong. Like I said, I want you all to come to me with problems. If I'm constantly being seen as just another teacher, not exactly easy to approach me is it?"

"R-Ruby. Thank you. For saving Jaune."

Ruby smiled at the young gladiator. "You don't ever need to thank me for saving somebody. And-" Ruby leant in close to the girl, "-I'm sure Jaune appreciates your own actions as well."

With that, Ruby dispersed herself, leaving Pyrrha to look back towards Jaune, a smile on her own lips.

"I hope so."

* * *

"Cardin Winchester, Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the Grimm Nevermore pieces. From this day forward you will work together as...Team Cardinal, led by Cardin Winchester."

The room gave polite applause, many of the students measuring up the new arrivals. Ruby was stood behind Ozpin, watching over the new arrivals closely, and categorizing them in her mind based on how they'd fight and what kind of training she could put them through.

"Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren. The four of you retrieved the Atlesian Battleship pieces. From this day forward you will work together as...Team Juniper, led by Jaune Arc."

Ruby raised an eyebrow at the surprising decision. Ozpin had a good eye, but the Arc boy had no prior experience, let alone experience in a team. While not to her skill-set, the Nikos girl would definitely do a better job. Then again, thinking of her own appointment as leader of team ROVR, Ruby knew Ozpin always had a bigger plan in mind when it came to assigning leaders than she could ever follow. Sometimes the plans would be nothing more than a hunch, and others were intricately formed ideas of greatness. Whichever it was, Oz probably had a reason for it.

"And finally, Russet Lavi, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao-Long. The four of you retrieved the Grimm Beowolf pieces. From this day forward you will work together as...Team RWBY, led by Russet Lavi."

Smirking to herself at the name of that particular team, Ruby looked over the 4 girls. Russet seemed to be in a mild state of shock, as did Weiss, who seemed very ready to throttle her new leader, whilst Blake looked like she couldn't care any less, and Yang was excited for her friend.

Sipping from his ever-present thermos, Ozpin looked over all the new student teams with a hidden smile.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an...interesting year.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a secluded warehouse in Vale, a very irate raven-haired dust-weaving Maiden was busily melting her way through a wall, grumbling to herself all the while.

"Hurry it up would'ja, we don't 'ave all day." One of her 'compatriots' told her, and she had to resist the urge to send a wave of fire at him. Thinking back on the days where she would happily burn someone who was so rude to her sent waves of anger through her, and she re-vowed to herself that she'd get revenge.

Just the thought of the smirking girl as she tore down all those intricate plans Cinder had made, all in the name of stability through sheer power sent her into another fit of rage, and she poured far more power into her hands, practically blasting the wall ahead of her with her power.

As the wall fell down, Cinder Fall vowed that she'd hunt down Ruby Rose, and make her pay for ruining her life.

* * *

**Hooray for longer chapters! Hip Hip Holy crap my hip popped out!...****I don't know either.**

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter, I quite like how it ended, thanks to a friend of mine for letting me bounce ideas off of him! And, finally, I'm out of initiation and can do my own thing. Expect a lot of Ruby in new situations and messing with the students. She's basically half combat-instructor and half unofficial school-counsellor for the students, so that's kind of what to hope for! ****Also, thanks for the response to Feathered Rose! It won't be a stable thing, but it's still something to read, huh?**

**Next Chapter: 27th of July**


	10. Chapter 10

**Just addressing a few points left in reviews here and there:**

**Yes, these chapters aren't much longer than the other chapters. They are steadily gaining a little length, and they will keep doing so until I find a comfortable length to end at. I think about 2500-3500 words seems like a comfortable weekly length for me in regards to this story.**

**No, I haven't described Russet or her weapon yet, I still don't have a good idea for her. Maybe chain-kamas or a Naginata, perhaps I'll just make her a gunslinger with some revolvers, I don't know. Anybody got a cool idea they'd like to see in the story, hit me up with it. Right now I'm leaning towards throwing knives with a weaker telekinesis semblance. She can retrieve her daggers using it, but she lacks the fine control and strength that Glynda has, so she has to use it in more mundane ways, like moving her blades back to her hands.**

**Finally, Rubycentricity! The story, according to someone who is totally un-named and isn't in the reviews for you to go say hi at has pointed out I still let the perspective stick with Russet and the other characters too much. I agree to be honest, considering how chapter 9 was mostly from the perspective of everybody as a group, not staying with one person, and chapter 8 was from Oz, Ruby, and Russet. So, this one will be exclusively through Ruby's eyes, with a tiny bit of Goodbitch for good measure.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter...**

**_Chapter 10_**

* * *

Light.

Whether it was the sky, or the sun, or fate itself, her curtains had decided to be perfectly positioned so the bastarding sliver of light shining through would hit nothing but her eyelids, rousing her from a comfortable dream filled with cookies and weapons and into the hells of the waking world. However, unfortunately for the entity that decided Ruby needed to wake up, Ruby took fate into her own hands, rolling over and shielding her face with a pillow, trying her damnest to go back to her sleeping.

Wait, light?

Ruby snapped her eyes open, her vision bleary as she cast a glance towards the clock on her nightstand and flopped back down on the bed with a grunt. Fortunately for Ruby she hadn't managed to sleep through the day and miss her first scheduled lesson, though she still had to be ready for the lesson, meaning being in the room early and setting stuff up.

Sighing, Ruby stretched out, popping her back in several places and rolling her shoulders around, trying to shake the cobwebs from her head and wake up, slinging her legs across the bed and over the edge, wincing when they touched the cold wooden floor of her Beacon abode, one of a few little rooms stuck onto the side of the dormitories for teachers to use when necessary. Most of the faculty had their own housing, but for those like her with nowhere to stay in Vale, or the few teachers who didn't want to put up with a morning commute like Oobleck, it suited their purposes excellently. And it had the added feature of being the closest rooms to the cafeteria.

Grabbing the necessary essentials Ruby tromped her way across her little room to the attached bathroom, slinging the door shut carelessly and all but flopping into the shower, still half-asleep and cursing the day to come.

Never let it be said that Ruby was a morning person. When she first came to Beacon, she'd be the early-bird, waking up her team bright and early for whatever inane scheme she could come up with, but after losing them, she fell into the habit of going to sleep late and regretting it each morning when the sun decided that she should be awake by then.

Switching the shower on, she placed her hand under the stream, revelling the feeling of the cold shifting slowly to warmth, stepping into the shower when it was comfortable and feeling her body wake up to the comforting feeling of warm water running through her hair, down her body and rinsing the sleepiness away. Letting her mind wander, Ruby found herself thinking about her planned lesson, smiling to herself in the privacy of her morning shower and looking forward to the day all of a sudden, previous woes of waking up completely forgotten.

Turning the shower off after a few more moments enjoying the water, she went through her routine, preparing herself and wrapping it all up by slinging her old cloak over her shoulders to complete the ensemble, wincing when she saw herself in the mirror and her mind helpfully made her recall her original outfit. Sure, she still had the corset, the skirt and the silver rose brooch, but it worked better than her original outfit, by far. Pure black and red was not a good outfit, not by a long shot.

Nodding to her reflection, she plastered a happy smile on her face and swung the door wide open, stepping out into the corridor and frowning when, instead of the usually regular trickle of students she remembered from her own time, now the corridor was empty.

Of course, in typical Beacon standards, the emptiness was interrupted when a loud "WHAT?" pealed through the air, and one of the doors further down the dorm was slung open, revealing the newly fashioned team RWBY, who were in the process of getting themselves wedged in their door-frame and glaring across the dormitory to team JNPR, who had just opened their door to find out what the noise was.

"What on earth is wrong?" Ruby asked, striding down the hallway and folding her arms at them.

"We've only got half an hour till lessons, and none of us have eaten yet!" Russet yelled from the middle of the now firmly stuck group, all of them wiggling and trying to force their way out, though when Ruby simply grabbed Russet by the shoulders and lifted her up and out of position, that subsequently freed the other three, who flew forwards into a big pile in the hallway, much to the amusement of their sister team, though they tried to unsuccessfully hide their snickering, whilst Russet was put down carefully by Ruby, who was just looking at the pile of tangled limbs with exasperation.

"Well maybe instead of getting stuck and wasting time, you can get moving!" Ruby punctuated her last word with a loud clap, rousing the group off the floor and they, along with JNPR, hurried down the hallway with only a few hastily shouted thank yous and farewells before they disappeared around a corner, leaving Ruby to just shake her head.

* * *

With the two teams sent on their way, Ruby made her own leisurely way to the cafeteria, waving to the other students around, and even having a few brief conversations with a few she recognized from her own time at Beacon, remarking at their progress in just a short year.

Most amusingly for Ruby, she saw team CFVY, a team she fondly recalled meeting during their first year with the rest of team ROVR when they were back in Beacon. She could still remember the day that Coco all but stole the beret that Velvet used to hide her ears, the gentle admonishment that Yatsuhashi gave her, and the indifferent acceptance of Fox.

Seeing the team all together was a bittersweet moment for Ruby, especially when they all expressed their condolences for Rubys loss, as she could tell it hurt them all as well to know that their peers, people who they considered friends, were all gone. But she pushed such morbid thoughts from their minds, reminding them that they could still look back and enjoy those old memories, whilst making new ones!

Making the most of it though, Ruby made plans with Coco to go out to town for a shopping spree at some point, promised to let Velvet take some photos of Crescent Rose and her at some point, accepted an offer of sharing some tea with Yatsuhashi at his favorite tea-house, and gave Fox a wave, causing the entire group to have a light laugh at the not so subtle joke about his blindness, a fact that Fox always liked. His team all knew how much he hated being treated like he was frail and couldn't take a joke at his blindless, so Ruby's willingness to joke with them all about it was...nice.

Giving her excuses, she left the group to head towards the cafeteria, her stomach growling already, and her mouth salivating at the delicious Beacon food she'd been unable to have for her year in the field. Now, for the first time in a year, she'd be able to enjoy some fine Beacon cuisine, and nothing could stop it!

* * *

When Ruby thought that nothing could stop her culinary quest, she forgot to take into account how absolutely insane some Beacon students could be. At least, glancing around the room, Ruby could safely say that nothing too bad had happened.

Stood in the kitchen side of the cafeteria menacing the chefs was one Nora Valkyrie, who seemed to be rather angry at something, while her partner was just stood there, shaking his head and muttering something. Their other teammates were sat with team RWBY, all 4 of which seemed to be cheering Nora on from their positions.

Placing a hand on Jaune's shoulder, Ruby watched as he almost leapt out of his seat in surprise at her arrival, though when he noticed who it was he calmed down, sporting a sheepish smile. "Hi Miss Rose, what's up?" He asked, keeping his eyes firmly in her direction and away from his teammate, who had at this point grabbed one of the chefs and was speaking in a hushed tone with him.

"Seriously, call me Ruby, please. And what is Miss Valkyrie doing in the kitchen?" She asked curtly, letting a bit of her previous 'command voice', as Violet had so eloquently nicknamed it, slip into her tone, watching as he unconsciously straightened up at her tone and stared at her.

"W-Well she said she wanted pancakes, and Ren told her they don't make pancakes, and she got angry and r-ran over there to go find out. Ren said he'd stop her but I guess she didn't listen." He said quickly, stumbling over a few words as he tried to meet her stare, and failed each time he tried, dropping his eyes, while she simply hummed to show she listened.

"HEY NORA!" She suddenly yelled, startling everybody near her, and most of the rest of the cafeteria as well, including the redhead, who dropped the chef she was holding with a start and looked back at Ruby, who was smirking at her. "They do make pancakes, but only on certain days." She said, putting her hands on her hips and watching as the gears in Nora's head exploded outwards, and she rounded on Ren with a growl.

"Renny dearest, why would you say they don't make pancakes?" She asked sweetly, batting her eyelids at the boy, who, remarkably, remained steadfast in his indifference.

"Nora, you darted off too quickly to explain i-" The calm boy was interrupted by Valkyrie grabbing him by the collar and shaking him like a dog would a chew toy, screaming all the while.

"BUT YOU SCARED ME LIKE THAT! I THOUGHT I'D NEVER SEE PANCAKES HERE AGAIN!" She yelled, all but sobbing at the sheer horror of not being able to have pancakes for breakfast in Beacon for a whole 4 years.

"Well, if that's all over, could you perhaps vacate the kitchen you two, the chefs would likely prefer preparing food to watching your little drama, hmm?" Ruby asked the pair, watching as they realized the situation they caused, and blushed, though most of it was done by Nora, while the boy simply looked apologetic, though not embarrassed. Making a mental note to ask him about the boys surprising emotional control, Ruby turned her attention to the arrayed food before her, quickly picking out several choice items, chuckling to herself at the thought of her younger self darting back in revulsion to some of the healthier options, and finally relenting on her old urges, allowing herself to pick up a second cookie, mentally deducting the same cookie she earned for her logical thought progression in the initiation.

Happy with her choices, she turned away from the food and scanned the cafeteria, frowning when the only place available was next to CRDL, the leader of which would probably not appreciate her presence. Pondering it for a moment, Ruby mentally slapped herself when she remembered Olive's little lesson for her when they had no available seats at all.

Walking over to a wall, Ruby leaned against it, placing her thigh at a 45-degree angle to her leg, then laying her other leg across her knee, giving herself a flat and stable surface to place her tray. Smiling at her ingenuity, Ruby didn't fail to notice how almost all of the eyes in the cafeteria were drawn to her odd choice, some pointing and snickering at the oddness of it, though most appreciated her out of the box thinking.

As she began eating her food, Ruby looked up when she heard footsteps approaching, and saw Russet approaching her, a sheepish smile on her face, one she returned happily.

"Mi-" She started, only to stop when Ruby frowned at her. "R-Ruby. You know there's a seat next to us, right?" She asked, and Ruby winced when, as she glanced over from her new perspective, she saw that there was, in fact, a spot between Russet and the edge of the bench that she didn't notice looking down the line.

Shrugging, Ruby simply gestured to her leg with a smirk. "Don't worry Russet, I've got my own ready-made seat here. Plus, it's pretty good strength training." She said, her smirk turning back into a full-blown smile when Russet looked at her leg with surprise.

"W-wait, you aren't using aura to do that?" She asked, her surprise easily visible when Ruby shook her head.

"I could, but that'd be a waste. Doing this just using my own leg strength is pretty decent endurance training as well. I could just reinforce my leg with aura to remove the strain and be able to sit like this all day, but then I'm only training my aura, rather than working out my normal strength as well."

"O-kay..." She said slowly, biting her lip and shaking her head. "Well, can I join you?" Russet asked, and Ruby tilted her head in confusion.

"I don't see why not? Plenty of wall space for ya. Though it won't be comfortable." As she said this, she watched Russet all but skip over to her table, grabbing her tray and walking back over, leaning against the wall in much the same way as Ruby, trying to imitate her stance and almost falling several times.

"Look, try using aura for the first few moments, then slowly cut the flow to your leg until you hit the point where you aren't completely supporting yourself with aura, but you can still stand. My legs are strong enough to it unassisted, but yours aren't gonna be used to the strain." She said, watching as Russet followed her advice, and felt something warm flare up in her chest when she took her little lesson to heart and managed to get herself stable enough without using much aura to actually eat something, smiling at Ruby with shining eyes.

"Thanks Ruby!"

Smiling back at the girl, Ruby was about to respond when she noticed how the cafeteria had again been distracted by her, and how more than a few students were walking over to the walls as well, until there were plenty of seats available, and the walls had numerous students trying, and many failing, to support themselves the same way, a fact which made Ruby chuckle.

"I bet Olive would be mortified to see so many people following her advice." She said with a small smile and chuckle.

"Olive?" Russet asked, looking up from her food at Ruby, who just shook her head to rid herself of the flurry of memories.

"My partner. She's the one who told me about this. It's funny, when we first tried it in here, we almost gave up because of the laughter, and nobody tried to imitate us, but now that I'm a teacher, I guess people see it differently huh?"

Glancing around, Russet could only shrug. "I guess so."

"Well, I guess it's a good lesson for people. Sure, you won't usually have a tray, but if you ever need somewhere to rest a plate or something, just leaning against a wall like that, or a tree, or whatever, it's pretty handy huh?" Ruby said, smiling when Russet just shrugged again. "Well, I'm going to be off. Good luck on your first day, and I'll be seeing you all in the afternoon." She said, standing from her position and putting a hand out to steady Russet when she tried to do the same and felt the full strain on her leg. "Careful, wouldn't want you to get injured before your first lessons now would we?"

"Well, if it got me out of-Oh yeah you're taking over from Goodwitch...Now I don't know if I should be relieved or worried." She said, watching as Ruby quirked an eyebrow.

"Do I really scare you all that much?" She asked.

"Well, it's the fact that its combat class. Combat class instructors are almost always seen as being pretty damn ruthless. I mean, look at Signal, Yang's Uncle is their combat instructor, and he's arguably worse than Professor Goodwitch apparently." She said, watching as Ruby snorted at the idea.

"Well, I can safely say I'm better than Goodwitch, and while that dusty old Qrow is kinda ruthless, to be honest he's usually too drunk to be scary. Guess that tells you how she got the nickname Good bit-" Ruby started saying, stopping abruptly when she saw the subject of her talking walk into the Cafeteria, and had to place a hand over Russets mouth to stop her from laughing. "Ahh, Glynda, what brings you here?"

Pushing her glasses up, Glynda Goodwitch turned her attention from the kitchen when she saw that the chefs were seemingly fine, and focused on Beacons newest teacher, who had her hand over the mouth of a student who seemed to be holding back laughter. "I was informed that Miss Valkyrie was threatening the chefs with bodily harm for some reason, and I was sent to investigate. I see you already had the matter...in hand." She said, wincing when Ruby immediately picked up on the potential joke.

Ignoring Ruby's loud cheer of "Goodwitch made a joke, the world ending is nigh!", she turned on heel and walked back out of the Cafeteria. "Ahh, she likes me." Ruby said when safely out of earshot. "Anyways, I should definitely be off. Don't be late for my lesson, alright?" She said sternly, though the smile on her lips detracted from the rest of her visage, and Russet saluted, not trusting her voice to break out laughing.

Throwing a last look around the room, Ruby let her smile fall as her thoughts drifted back to Olive, with her bright smile when she showed Ruby how to make a chair out of any wall, and she walked out of the cafeteria before anybody could notice her deteriorating mood, hand clasped on the very faint scar marring her face, mouth twisting into a grimace, her eyes hard as steel.

"I'll find you."

* * *

**Just in case anybody is curious, Ruby is using her season 6 outfit now. I would come up with my own, but to be perfectly honest I love her current outfit too much to change it. ****I will admit, I find writing this to come far easier than Crimson Dovah right now, probably because now that I'm writing my own events, it feels far easier than sticking with forced events. I mean, almost 100% of this chapter was my own imagination, and I feel way better having written it.**

**I forgot to ask last chapter, but how do you all feel about Cinder being more motivated by revenge against Ruby herself, rather than her over-reaching plans to destroy Beacon and gain the Maidens powers?**

**Yes, Ruby has a facial scar in this story, it's very faint, as in even Russet didn't see it when she was looking closely at Ruby's face, but it's there. I'll be elaborating on the origins of that scar, and it will have a pretty big implication soon.**

**Oh, and don't worry, those of you who wanted to see more violence like Chapter 1's brutality. Beacon is currently sunshine and rainbows for everybody, but darkness is coming, and to tide you over, chapter 11 will be a flashback, since I want to flesh out some of the things that are going to be happening, get some motivations going, and establish the rivalry between Cinder and Ruby a bit more.**

**Next Chapter: 3rd of August**


	11. Chapter 11

**So, any of you lovely people reading Feathered Rose? I'm curious how much overlap my stories have since the only thing tying them all together is Ruby Rose. If you don't read it, that's cool, but you might want to check it out, it's kinda brutal but IMHO one of my favorite stories to write right now, especially since I think Rogue is absolutely adorable.**

**This chapter is going to be a bit of flashback, and a bit of Ruby's first lesson, so that'll be fun to write. Thing is, I write the top authors note before the story, and the bottom one after, just in case anybody was curious. So, right now I don't know how exactly the story is gonna go.**

**Well, enough of that, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 11**_

* * *

The cold, crisp night-time air was relaxing for Cinder. After dealing with the infuriating presence of Torchwick and his little Ice-Cream harlot Neopolitan, having something to cool her off and help her control her power was a welcome balm. Fortunately for Roman, he'd set up in a warehouse with roof access, so, should the need arrive, Cinder could simply head up to the roof and calm down.

So, when she heard a loud crashing sound, and numerous angry shouts, Cinder just sighed, turning on her heel to walk back inside and deal with whatever stupid mistake Roman's dim-witted help had gotten up to. After trying and failing to recruit the White Fang to her cause, Cinder had to switch up tracks, hiring out men from a local information broker to cover the gap that Romans own men were incapable of filling.

Considering those same men thought attacking a huntress in training was a smart idea, Cinder doubted they could find their way out of a room if the door hit them in the face. Ignoring the fact that they'd be unconscious of course. Many of them had unlocked aura, but they were so fragile a stiff breeze would break them.

Walking into the main storage area, Cinder wasn't expecting to see a fight happening, a strikingly familiar scene playing out as a young woman in red and black struck down all of their help like she was mowing the grass, though what really jogged her memory was the giant scythe that unfurled itself occasionally to strike before re-collapsing.

Groaning inwardly, Cinder remembered the day she pulled Romans ass out of the fire and saved him from that same woman, nobody could forget her stupidly ridiculous weapon. Though at the time the woman was far weaker, she was still strong enough to give the thief a run for his money. It was clear she hadn't been idle, if the smarter tactics and varied weaponry she used were any indication.

She still had her damnable scythe, but she only used it sparingly when she needed the extra reach or speed, instead relying on the versatility of a one-handed sword and an off-hand dagger which she used to parry attacks, opening her opponent's defence up for a retaliatory strike.

At one point, the red-hooded girl was forced to reveal another of her tricks, doing a backflip away from an attack and kicking him in the chin, revealing that her shoes had steel toe-caps, though any good huntsman should have them, it never hurt to confirm information like that.

Debating the pros and cons of intervening, Cinder threw her arms up in frustration, drawing on her powers and forming her glass bow, nocking an arrow and waiting for an opportunity.

At the first opening she loosed her arrow, watching as the girl noticed it at the last moment, drawing her body back to avoid being impaled, and receiving a long thin gash on her arm for her troubles. Preparing another arrow, Cinder had to then dodge as the girl sheathed her dagger, grabbing her scythe and opening fire on the maiden, who just smirked as she stepped out of the line of fire for a moment, dis-integrating her bow and forming her swords, already relishing the fight the girl would give her, before dashing forward and locking the girls blade with one of her own, swinging the other at her mid-riff.

Seeing it coming, the girl kicked off the ground, flipping over the blade and discarding her scythe in favor of attempting a punch on her opponent, though Cinder merely stepped backwards, releasing her blade from the lock and charging back in immediately with a flurry of strikes, though her frustration started climbing as the girl drew her dagger and fended off the attacks with a smirk on her face, as if the attacks were contemptibly slow.

Growling, Cinder swung her swords out, letting a little of her maiden power slip out into a ranged fire attack, and almost shouted in frustration when the girl seemingly just de-materialized around her strike. Schooling her features, she put a smirk of her own on her face. "That's a handy semblance." She said in her sultry voice, watching the petals swirl around and the girl re-appeared none the worse for wear.

"Yeah, it kinda is. Doesn't get much better than that really." The girl said guardedly, careful to not let any information on her ability slip out, much to Cinder's chagrin. Whoever the girl was, she wasn't stupid enough to announce her semblance or abilities like some idiots the maiden knew. Seriously, who tells their opponent what their abilities do, unless they're either supremely strong or supremely stupid.

Shaking her head, Cinder dropped one of her swords, letting it disappear before it hit the ground, and waved her hand, forming several shards of glass in front of her and launching them, watching the girl weave between the projectiles and attempt to close the distance, that ever-present smirk on her face, though it appeared slightly strained as she slowly accumulated small cuts and scrapes from close-calls with the rain of projectiles.

Stopping her barrage of glass, Cinder re-formed her second sword, stepping forward to meet the girl halfway and bringing her powers to bear a fair bit stronger, watching the girls sword arm buckle from the force of the strike and forced her to side-step the attack, using her dagger to push the blade away before it could cleave her in two, spinning around and swinging her sword at Cinder from the other side, who nonchalantly blocked it with her other blade, stepping backwards and thrusting her sword forward.

Swinging her sword upwards to deflect the thrust, the girl tried to get into Cinder's guard, where her swords wouldn't be as effective but her dagger would be extremely useful, though the maidens back-peddling prevented this, keeping the girl at an effective range for sword-strikes and keeping the dagger from being an effective threat.

The pair kept their fight up for a good while, both becoming slowly exhausted, though Cinder knew that if need be she could lean on her maiden powers and win any contest of endurance, which was why while her opponent was definitely strong, Cinder could afford to keep her smirk in place, knowing that no matter what, she would be the victor in this little battle of attrition.

And, her patience was rewarded, as her opponent failed to bring her blade back to guard from a swing, letting Cinder run her sword towards her chest. In a last-ditch motion, the girl leaned backwards to avoid the blade, but it wasn't enough, as the sword caught her face, running up her cheek and through her eye, and Cinder grit her teeth in satisfaction as she heard the girl scream in pain.

Her victory was short-lived however, as the girl, pushing through the pain, kicked her back foot downwards with force, sending her forwards into Cinders midriff, knocking the air out of her lungs and staggering the maiden.

Bringing her dagger around, she ran her own dagger in a motion mirroring Cinder's own attack, and when Cinder brought her hand up to try and block the attack, she watched the dagger plunge through her hand, clenching her teeth at the white-hot agony that coursed through her body, though she forced herself to keep focused, clenching her hand tight to keep the blade in place and attempted to cut her opponent in two.

They saw it coming easily, releasing the blade and leaving it stuck in the maiden's hand, zipping back with the help of their semblance and collapsing to a knee, one hand over their eye, glaring at Cinder with hatred, who returned the glare easily, wrenching the dagger out of her hand and casting it aside, forming a bow and nocking an arrow.

But, before the bow was even fully formed, Cinder watched as her opponent disappeared into crimson petals, breezing away from her and out of a window into the night, leaving Cinder to clench her hand in pain and frustration as she heard the sirens of 'Vales Finest' closing in.

Committing the bitch who stabbed her and exposed her biggest stockpile to memory, Cinder made sure that she'd find out more about the little scythe wielder, and make her feel pain beyond her worst nightmares...

* * *

"-ose? Miss Rose? Ruby!"

Snapping her eyes open, Ruby smiled up at Russet from her seated position against the wall, who just gazed back with a worried expression. "Heya Russet, what's up?"

"You were mumbling something, and when I went to touch your arm you almost drew your dagger, so I wasn't sure what to do." Russet said, and Ruby noticed that one of her hands was behind her back, making her shudder at the implication. Standing and stepping forward, Ruby slowly laid her hand on Russet's shoulder with a sad smile.

"Sorry about that, bad memories. Word to the wise, don't try to wake me up by touching me, unless you suddenly have an urge to get a bionic arm." Ruby said with a smirk, watching Russet nod before turning her attention to the rest of team RWBY, who were sat up in the stands of the combat arena and watching closely, though Yang just had her hands folded behind her neck, already knowing how Ruby can get. "So, you're all early. So excited to see me teach that you came before anybody else, huh?" Ruby said, ruffling Russets hair and earning a glare for her trouble.

"Pwwsh, as if. Weiss all but demanded that we arrive 'promptly' to all our lessons. While I agree that we should be a little early, she could afford to be less...'bitchy' about it." Russet said, dropping her voice to a whisper so Weiss couldn't hear her, though all it served to do was made Ruby laugh.

Shaking her head, Ruby looked over to Weiss, who was just watching the pair confused. "Well, look at it from her perspective. I hear her daddy dearest was a big prick, she's only here because she has a silver tongue sometimes, managed to half blackmail him, and half trick him into letting her come here rather than going to Atlas Academy. While I acknowledge her skills, the world does not need another Winter Schnee." Ruby said, shuddering at the memories of a sabre to her throat, even if she did have a dagger to her opponents throat in retaliation.

"Winter?" Weiss said, having overheard a little of the conversation, and walked down the steps towards the arena with a tilted head. "Do you know my sister?"

Shrugging, Ruby turned her attention from Russet and over to Weiss. "I guess? She spends more time with Qrow, but considering their whole tough love relationship I'm bound to run into her occasionally. For what it's worth, she's damn strong, but she could do with curbing some of her attitude. Half the time I want to pity her for being a drone of the military, and half the time I want to punch her in the face for being a, excuse my faux pas, giant frigid bitch." Ruby said shamelessly, watching Weiss's face redden with anger and smirked at the heiress.

"How dare you! Winter is strong, noble, courageous, and a million times better than you!" Weiss said, fists clenched at the sheer audacity of Ruby to call her sister...that!

"Oh, a million times better than me. Tell ya what, the next time you see her, ask her what our current tally is, and I reckon sister dearest will clam up and make excuses to avoid the question. If she does, I'll tell you just what our balance of strength is. Now!" Ruby said, raising her voice and clapping to cut off any argument. "The class is gonna start soon, so if you could go back up to your place that'd be just peachy, I need to go and..." Ruby trailed off, running through the steps Glynda drilled into her head for setting up the arena.

She'd set combat arenas up before, a memory of the rest of team ROVR demanding she fight them 3 on 1 rising to the surface, and Ruby had the strange feeling of wanting to start smiling and tearing something up at the same moment, though she pushed her emotions back down, shaking her head and grabbing the control pad to set up parameters and busy herself while students filtered in, occasionally flicking her eyes up to observe the students entering.

Many of them looked adept enough at combat, with a few exceptions in both ways. Ruby already knew Yang's fighting style and strength, so she settled on using her as the first demonstration, but she also noted that despite his initial scare, Jaune was still in the school, a fact which made Ruby smile. Despite seeing just how much lower he was to the bar, he was still determined to be a huntsman, something Ruby could appreciate, as it was similar to her own situation, being thrown into Beacon 2 years early meant she had 2 whole years of catch-up work to do.

Making a mental note to grab the boy and talk to him about it at some point, Ruby wrapped up her preparations just as the last group of students quietly filed into the room, slipping the datapad into it's position at the edge of the arena and watching the screens above her light up, revealing her portrait alongside Yang's, and heard more than a few gasps when they watched Yang's aura bar fill quickly, whereas Ruby's took far longer.

Cutting the question off at the roots, Ruby quickly coughed, bringing the attention away from the screens and onto her. "Yes I have a lot of aura, it's kinda necessary with my semblance. Now, with that out of the way, welcome to combat class. Now, as I'm sure you're all aware-" Ruby began, smirking at Jaune deliberately, who shrunk back from her gaze, "-combat class is where you'll hone your combat style against your peers, learning your strengths, weaknesses, yadda yadda. You all probably don't want to hear me natter on about all this, right?" At the loud jeering, Ruby smiled.

"I felt much the same way when it was Goodwitch doing this, don't you all worry! Now, to those of you who didn't notice it, up above me we've got a typical tournament set-up going on, 1 vs 1 fights until one of our auras have reached the red zone. That means anywhere below 20%. Since I already know Yang-" Ruby heard a gasp from team RWBY, which made her smirk, and almost laugh at Yang's glare, "-I'll be fighting her for the first match, so if you could go fetch Ember Celica, Yang, I'll go over the rest whilst you're busy, since you already know it."

With that, Ruby watched Yang go, before going into the intricacies of the match, most of it being covered by the primary academies like Signal, but still needing to be rehashed for those who got in by merit rather than through regular school, though that didn't make it any less boring.

"Now, to gauge your initial strengths, I'll be fighting you all one on one in the coming lessons. Of course, you all have your own fighting styles, so I can't tell you what will and won't work. I'm sure for many of you, the way I fight is completely impossible, just like how Yang's hand to hand style is far too reliant on strength for me to use. But what I can do is make sure you match up with opponents who will push you into your weaknesses and let you learn counter-measures. Take...Miss Nikos for example." Ruby said, gesturing towards the gladiator, who wilted under the collective stares now being levelled her way, clearly unhappy to suddenly be on the spot. "She has undoubtedly been pressed hard to learn her own weaknesses and counter for it, which is why she has a weapon capable of adapting to most situations easily."

Going off from that tangent, Ruby began picking out students and outright stating what she figured would be their weaknesses, and getting it right most of the time if the sheepish looks were any indication.

Watching Yang enter the arena, Ruby wrapped up her speech. "I don't say any of this to put you all down. Everybody has a weakness. You just have to learn how to counter it. For example..." Ruby whipped out Crescent Rose, casually swinging it around her arm and laying it across her shoulders. "Crescent Rose here is great at dealing with Grimm, but it's less effective if I have to fight a human opponent. So, to counter this, instead of coming up with some convoluted fix, I just carry other weapons...Yes, miss Schnee?" Ruby said, noticing the girl had raised her hand in question, and stood when called upon.

"Couldn't you just make your current weapon mechashift into something more suitable?" Weiss said, frowning when Ruby shook her head and chuckled.

"I could, but remember what I said 20 seconds ago. To add more forms to Crescent Rose would increase how complex she is, which turns into a liability. The more moving parts, the more likely it is to fail somewhere critical. Leaving her nice and stable how she is was preferable. Now, who here has figured out what my other weapons are? Anybody?" Looking around the room, Ruby frowned when everybody shook their heads. "Well, Yang, you've seen em, care to explain for the class?" Ruby said, gesturing with a hand towards the stands while Yang stepped from one foot to the other, warming up.

"Hmph, you know how hard it is to tell, right Ruby? Most of you were looking at her waist, right?" Yang said, watching most of the class nod. "Most opponents do that as well, expecting people to keep their weapons on belts and whatnot. Look under her arms." Yang said, gesturing with a hand to her own underarm.

Raising an arm in accord, Ruby showed the class her weaponry. Under her right arm she had her dagger sheathed, the point facing her armpit and readily drawable, whereas under her other arm she had the collapsed form of her sword, handle pointing towards her elbow, again to allow easy drawing.

Grasping the handle of her sword, Ruby detached it from its position, forming it and swinging it outwards in a single motion, creating the illusion of drawing the sword blade from the air itself, which distracted the class from seeing her palm her dagger until she threw it in the air and caught it in a reverse grip, a smirk on her face.

"I've lost count of how many times people have seen Crescent Rose and gotten over-confident, so having these babies hidden but readily drawable has saved my life in a fight more than once, and cost more than a few their own." Ruby said, grimacing when she noted the surprise and slight horror on many of the students faces, forgetting that the idea of attacking humans was lost on the students, who so far had only dreams of killing the Grimm.

"Well, that's a story for another day. Now, Yang, since I don't want to humiliate you completely, how about a hand to hand, no weapons, no semblances?" Ruby said, re-sheathing her weapons and taking up a stance.

"You know I won't go easy on ya." Yang said, collapsing Ember Celica and taking her own stance, steadying herself and preparing for the fight.

"Well, without further ado...GO!"

* * *

**Yes, I'm a bastard.**

**I didn't want to write that fight in this chapter, we already had one big fight****, so having two just felt like too much.**

**On that note, what did you think of Ruby's fight with Cinder? Did it seem alright? I don't know, that's the thing, I don't know how to write fight scenes, and while it was fun, I'm worried it's gonna be boring or sound stupid. If it was, I'll probably just make it way simpler, sticking with general descriptions of the fight rather than how they moved.**

**Also, that was Cinder's first proper encounter with Ruby, but they have affected each other in the past before the warehouse, as evidenced by Ruby messing with Torchwick. Cinder's machinations have also afflicted Ruby, but that'll be something I deal with later.**

**Last thing...I know. I have a bit of a thing for my characters losing eyes. That's now 4 out of 6, since Ruby only has one eye in this, Feathered Rose, Engineer Extraordinaire and Broken Watch. And 5 out of 6 Ruby's are mutilated in some way, since Skyrim-Ruby lost her wings. The only non-mutilated Ruby is my Alagaesian-Ruby, and that probably won't last...I mean she'll be fine and happy!**

_I don't know why I'm like this..._


	12. Chapter 12

**Note to self: Don't try to start writing a chapter about 10 minutes after waking up with a headache. It won't go well.**

**In future, probably a better idea to just note down what ideas you woke up with and write about them later. I regret my decisions massively, oh well. This chapter will be Ruby fighting Yang, Blake, Weiss and Russet in consecutive battles, so if you want to see some of how I write fight-scenes, here you go.**

**It feels...strange. Since taking myself away from having a fixed schedule and instead merely uploading when I've finished a chapter and I'm happy with it feels odd. After two months of uploading, having no fixed timer to upload a chapter is quite relieving. I will still try to write chapters for my different stories, but as I said, some of them may end up going a long while without an update, simply because I don't feel the drive to write for them.**

**Also, any of you lovely people going to the Great Dorset Steam Fair? A friend of mine goes each year and I'm curious about it now.**

**Enough talking, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 11**_

* * *

Circling her opponent, Ruby kept her arms raised, carefully watching Yang taking slow and cautious steps towards her, her own arms mirroring Ruby's.

Yang had fought Ruby plenty, practically every time her Uncle had dragged Ruby to the house she'd all but dragged the mysterious redhead out to spar with, and she knew better than anybody in the room how Ruby fought. Ruthlessly.

Without warning, Ruby zipped forwards, far slower than her semblance but still enough to make Yang tense up slightly, lashing out with her fist in a quick jab to ward Ruby's swift approach off, though the woman saw the attack coming miles away, ducking under her hand and swinging her own fists at Yang's unprotected mid-section with far greater speed than Yang's own heavy but powerful attacks, scoring a series of fast strikes before Yang could bring her elbow down, forcing Ruby to back off out of Yang's guard with a smirk.

Stepping a moderate distance away, Ruby began addressing the class, whilst keeping Yang at a distance with her superior speed and reach. "You see class, whilst Yang has far stronger attacks than my own, if she cannot land a hit, the battle will go to me. However, my own strikes take such little aura that she can afford to take a few hits if it means she can trap me in a position where she can get a full punch on me."

Leaning to the side and then ducking to avoid a cross and a jab, Ruby kicked forwards, sending the pair flying back from each other, though while Ruby landed neatly on her feet, Yang slipped over from the force and rolled backwards in a heap. "Not to say I'm weak, far from it, but in a regular fight, doing this would be very dangerous, at least on Yang. There are only two 'safe' ways to deal with Yang's semblance. Overwhelming force, or slow and methodical chipping, not enough to prock her semblances ability, but enough to whittle her aura down." Ruby said, facing away from Yang and ducking when she heard Yang try for a punch to the back of her head, stepping to the side to avoid her follow-up tackle and sticking a foot out, sending Yang to the floor again.

"Now, don't let this fight dissuade you. I was a prodigy, so it's not exactly fair to expect that you would win against me. The only people in the first-years I'd guess to be at a level high enough to give me a mild challenge, at full strength that is, right now are Pyrrha Nikos and Yang here. I won't go into exactly why, that'd give the entire game away, but I highly expect those two to be locked for first and second place in combat rankings." Ruby announced, smirking at the blush appearing on Pyrrha's face, and sighing when she heard Yang stamping over to her.

Turning to face her opponent again, it was clear she was rather angry at having her semblance dissected in front of class, and then brazenly being called second strongest in the first-year class. Tapping her chin, Ruby decided to spice up the match a little. "Okay, since it's evident already to the class just how this would end up, how about this. You can use Ember Celica and your semblance, and I'll just use Silver here." Ruby said, drawing her dagger with a flourish, throwing it into the air and catching it by the grip in reverse, before swinging the blade around her hand and catching it by the blade, finishing her little demonstration by again throwing it up, but then using a tiny bit of her semblance to slow the daggers fall so it almost appeared to levitate above her hand.

Finally grabbing the blade again, Ruby caught Yang's eye-roll with a smirk, turning to the audience and giving a bow. Ignoring the smattering of applause, Ruby focused on Yang, who had deployed Ember Celica and took up a stance to launch fire dust at Ruby. "You ready?" Ruby asked, watching Yang nod her head. "Well, let's go then!"

Charging forward, Ruby watched Yang fire off her attacks, and she ran head-long into them, nipping between each strike with bare centimeters between her and the blazing dust, which passed by harmlessly, much to Yang's irritation. Giving up on her ranged attacks, Yang lowered herself down, fixing her body in place to Ruby couldn't just drop-kick her right out of the arena, and prepared herself to give as good as she had.

Lunging out at her teacher with a hook, Yang watched as Ruby ducked under it, punishing the over-extension with a quick slice along the arm, followed by a thrust that Yang dodged by backpeddling, bringing her other arm across herself to guard against a second attempt while she followed her hook with a quick one-two punch, both of which were avoided seamlessly, though this time Yang was fast enough to draw her arms back from the attack to not get sliced and protect against a stab towards her chest, though when she tried to trap the blade between her gauntlets, Ruby watched it happen and swiped the blade sidewards, freeing it from its position and having the added benefit of hitting Yangs arm again.

Seeing her hair lighting up slightly, Ruby smirked, knowing that if Yang wasted her charged energy now, even if she landed a damn superman punch with it, Ruby's aura would be able to tank it easily. Avoiding a cross, Ruby stepped right into Yang's guard, slashing the dagger across her midriff several times in quick succession before ducking back out as Yang brought her arms in to try and crush her.

Throwing a glance up at the screen, Ruby tilted her head as she realized Yang was actually far closer to being in the red than she'd first realized, meaning her semblance would be much more powerful than she'd thought. Thinking it over in the moments afforded by her backing off whilst Yang recovered from the slashes across her body, Ruby snapped her fingers, looking at Yang in amusement. "Sneaky."

That was all she said as she watched Yang's hair erupt into her signature flames, and Ruby deliberately put herself on a defensive footing to give at least somewhat of a decent show for the audience. Dodging and diving around Yang's fists, Ruby smiled as she saw Yang pushing herself to land even a single semblance powered punch. Knowing that Yang would absolutely hate it if Ruby deliberately gave her a free hit, Ruby dropped under another jab, slashing her arm and catching her dagger on Ember Celica, using the gauntlet to pull herself into a slide and throw Yang over her, sending the girl into a front-flip and ending up on the ground, lying onto her back.

Hearing the automated buzzer for aura-depletion, Ruby stood from her slide, brushing off her back from the dust that gathered after her slide, and helped Yang up with a hand, which she took grumpily, just as usual.

"Now, as you all saw, Yang has strength, but she couldn't land a single solid hit on me. Sure, I lost a single percent of my aura from being too close to her dust, but that's negligible, and if I wasn't going for a frontal assault, I wouldn't have lost any aura in the fight. So, for her, all I can say is that she should be practising to deal with high-speed opponents." Turning to face Yang closer, Ruby leaned in, laying a hand on the girls shoulder and raising her view up to meet her own. "You're strong, but against someone like me, as you already know, you need to be able to read their movement quickly and counter them before they strike. Or do you want to re-enact our first meeting?" Watching Yang's face redden as she furiously shook her head, Ruby chuckled, sending Yang off to go put Ember Celica away and head back to the stands, running her hand over her chin in contemplation.

"Okay, since I've had one member of team RWBY, why not have them all. Blake, you're up! Go get your weapon and get down here. Then I'll take Weiss, and finally Russet, unless either of you have a reason to avoid the fight?" At their shaking heads, Ruby let an easy smile appear on her face. "Good."

Watching the girl disappear to go collect her weaponry, Ruby sat down, crossing her legs and leaning back. "Now, who here has killed a Grimm before the initiation? Come on, arms up!" Ruby asked, frowning when only a third of the class actually raised their arms. "And, out of all those who raised their arms, lower them if it was in a controlled environment with a teacher or hunter nearby, ready to intervene."

When the vast majority of the class had their hands down, Ruby sighed. "Now, I don't ask this because I want to, but I kind of need to figure you all out, and since I'm not exactly experienced in this I'm just gonna come right out and ask it. A show of hands will do again. Who here has fought a person before? And not some small-scale punching match, but an actual battle? Yang, you can put your arm down, I already know about you and Junior's." Ignoring the blush on Yang's face, Ruby glanced around the room, inwardly facepalming at just how few of the students had their arms up.

"Look, dealing with this early on is best for you, so I'm doing this now rather than later. Hunters fight the Grimm, that's what you've been all taught, day in and day out. But-" Ruby gestured with a finger at her black eye, "-Grimm aren't the only monsters out there. As a few of you no doubt know, there are people out there who are worse than the Grimm outside our walls. See, the Grimm do it because it's what they are made to do, but another person, well, they have a choice, don't they? And they chose to fight their fellow man rather than do something productive."

Grimacing, Ruby took a few moments to ponder her next words carefully, grateful when Blake came into the arena to interrupt her and let the students think about what she had said. "Now, same rules as the last round, first one to 20% loses. Of course, since I don't know you I can't exactly set the match up in the same way as Yang, so semblance and weapons, anything goes, alright? Good." Ruby said at the girl nodding. "Well, let's begin!"

Grabbing the handle of her dagger, Ruby watched her opponent draw their own weapon, what at first looked like a stun prod or something, but turned out to be a sword/sheath combo weapon. When she drew her weapon, the sheath changed slightly and turned into a large cleaver, revealing that both were actually weapons, though the katana also had a pistol attached to it, which the girl was currently using to line up a shot at her.

Smirking, Ruby tapped into her semblance just a little, enough to avoid the bullets fired at her and close the distance between her and her opponent in moments, swinging the dagger at the girls face and watching her cleaver come up to block the strike, while her katana blade swung for her torso, a blow which Ruby avoided by jumping and twisting her body sideways, her dagger still pressed against the girls second blade, and forcing Blake backwards, whilst at the same time pushing off her weapon and flying out of range of the girls weaponry.

With a smile, Ruby threw the dagger into the air, catching it with her left hand and swiping it in front of her, triggering its dust capabilities and releasing a cloud of smoke around her, enough to conceal her drawing her sword and launching the dagger at her opponent.

To her credit, she reacted fast enough to use what had to be her semblance, avoiding the dagger which was on a collision course with her chest by creating a copy of herself whilst her actual body moved out of the way.

Whistling in amusement, Ruby let the girl recollect herself whilst she zipped around using her semblance to snatch her dagger out of the air, mentally berating her instincts and reminding herself that she was meant to be gauging strengths, not delivering brutal smackdowns, ignoring the gasps of surprise at her little show of speed.

After the girl had landed and re-oriented herself, Ruby darted back in again, noting the girl was making far more liberal use of her semblance, avoiding her attacks using her clones and trying to get opportunistic strikes, though Ruby was far too fast to let her attacks slip into her guard, always bringing her dagger and sword up at the exact right moment.

Gritting her teeth, Blake decided to gamble her abilities against her opponent, throwing her katana out and yanking her ribbon, bringing it behind Ruby and swinging it for her back, while her cleaver swung towards her face, attacking from two directions but leaving her with only one weapon to guard against Ruby's two.

Taking the opening for what it was, Ruby used her dagger to block the cleaver, thrusting her sword towards Blake, who used her semblance to avoid the strike, leaving a little bit of ice dust to trap her opponents sword. Smirking, Blake yanked on her ribbon again, sending the blade flying at high speed for the teachers back.

Adopting a smirk of her own, Ruby let go of her sword, dropping to her knees and letting the katana and cleaver collide above her, before she kicked out, breaking Blake's hold on her cleaver and snatching the weapon, using her dagger to knock the katana away, before pushing the cleaver up into the ribbon, looping said ribbon around the weapon and leaving it trapped, tying up her opponents weapon completely.

Glancing up at the scoreboard, Ruby noted that her opponent's semblance must take a lot of aura, as her clones were very good imitations and could become corporeal if dust was used, as evidenced by her trapped sword.

Turning her attention back to the girl, Ruby smiled, kicking the ice clone with a little assistance from her aura and shattering it, freeing her sword and letting it drop into her waiting hand, while the girl was quickly running to grab her cleaver and try to untangle it, but to no avail, as Ruby closed the distance quickly, crossing her dagger and sword across the girls neck and smiling.

"And that's the match. It was a good fight, your semblance has the ability to avoid seemingly inevitable strikes, but it's a bit like how mine used to be, it hogs aura like crazy, making it bad for prolonged fights. You fight in a rather similar way to my own, far too fast to hit normally, and with a back-up plan in the way of your semblance if that doesn't work. I'd recommend you practice with throwing your weapon and manipulating the ribbon more, if it was anybody else your two-front attack would have likely trapped them."

Waving an arm at the locker room, Ruby looked up at the stand, pointing towards the Schnee and waving towards her. "Come on Weissicle, you're up next!"

Ignoring the girls indignant yell of anger, Ruby settled back down into a seated position. "So, anybody have any suggestions for what Blake could have done to catch me? Anyone at all?" Ruby asked, looking around the room and smirking when nobody raised their hands. "Good, another lesson for you, and one that's imperative to learn. Sometimes, your opponent won't have a convenient weakness to exploit, and they'll be too strong to just beat outright."

"Listen very closely. If any of you were to fight me to the death, you would all lose. I don't say that to demean your skills, it comes down to experience mostly. I have had several years of fighting other people, whereas the only students in this room who have experience fighting against another person in a life or death battle are the two people I just beat without taking a hit to my aura. Again, this is not to demean your own skills, it's just how it is. You have to learn to recognise when a foe is beyond you and retreat or get help. Trust me, I've had my fair share of fights just like that."

"Miss?" One voice piped up, and when Ruby waved towards them they stood up. "About what you said earlier. I'm guessing you saying that we need to recognise stronger foes is in regards to other people?" The figure said, and Ruby grimaced.

"Okay, first off, I would prefer being called Ruby. I mean, it's cool if it feels weird, just call me Miss Rose, but I don't like being called Miss something, makes me feel way older than I am. And to answer your question, kind of. Now, there are a lot of people out there who are far beyond your capabilities in a fight. But the same thing applies to the Grimm. For example..." Ruby pointed at Ren. "Lie Ren, if you were to come across a Goliath, could you beat it with your current weapons?" When the boy shook his head, Ruby smiled. "Some Grimm are simply beyond your capabilities. But of course, your own weapons are excellent in other circumstances. I mean-" Ruby unfurled Crescent Rose smoothly, swinging it across her shoulders, much to the surprise of several students who didn't realize she even had it. "-Crescent Rose here would be terrible if I was in a corridor, whereas Ren's weapon would be excellent."

At the dawning realization sprouting across her students faces, Ruby let a genuine smile slip onto her face. "Some people just have the wrong weapons for certain tasks." She said, watching Weiss appear from the tunnel with her rapier in hand. "Now, same rules, use whatever you wish, etcetera, you remember what I said earlier Weiss?" Ruby said quickly, collapsing her Scythe back into place, grabbing her dagger and watching the white-clad girl nod. "Then, let's go!"

Kicking off, Ruby smirked as the white glyph appeared in front of her. Clearly the girl was more analytical than any of the other members of her team, noting how she liked to start her fights and countering her charge with a wall. Unfortunately for the Heiress though, her position as a Schnee gave the game away about her semblance. Well, that and the fact that Ruby had sparred with Winter once for twice when Qrow was drunk, and knew enough to know what the Glyph in front of her was meant for, leaping up and using the top of the shield glyph as a springboard for extra speed once she was over it, launching herself straight at the Heiress, who barely brought her rapier up in time to deflect the dagger, allowing Ruby to slip a punch past her, knocking the wind from her lungs and making her take a few steps backwards, weapon up to ward off any follow-up attacks.

Playing with her dagger, Ruby gave the girl a few moments to catch her breath, neatly side-stepping when she tried to use a gravity glyph to pin her in place, and smirking at the indignant screech of anger the girl gave her.

Charging forwards again, Ruby weaved around the glyphs the girl used to try and catch her, sliding under a frantically constructed shield glyph and straight towards the girl, who was not expecting her sudden movement and had her legs swept out from under her. Backflipping into a standing position, Ruby watched the girl hurredly try to get up and recompose herself, but this time Ruby gave no quarter, stepping up close to her and forcing her to use her weapon in a panic, sighing to herself when all the girls strikes and guards were completely useless against her dagger.

In a quick motion, Ruby shoved aside the point of the rapier, stepping one foot between the Heiresses legs and hooking it around, kicking the back of her knee and making it buckle, whilst her dagger slipped into one of the cross-hilt spikes, wrenching the blade away from the girls grip and leaving her defenceless.

Putting her dagger to her throat, Ruby called the match, letting a groan slip out at the headache she was getting. "Weiss, I liked your use of Glyphs, as well as your attempt to block me at the very start of the match, but you are far, FAR too rigid. You need to learn when to take the time and compose yourself, and when to just go with the flow. I understand that the whole rigid fighting style is something Schnee instructors would hammer into you, but I watched Winter go through the exact same thing, and she knows well enough to know that fluidity in a fight is everything."

Putting a finger to the girl's lips to stall her argument, Ruby continued. "When I tripped you, what you could have done was roll to the side, use some of the fire or ice dust in your rapier to ward me away for a moment while you stood up again, then go from there. Instead, you hoped you had enough time to stand up, which you didn't, forcing you into a wild panic when I got close. If you panic like that in front of a Grimm, they will kill you easily."

Waving the girl towards the lockers, Ruby checked the time and smiled. If she kept up her pace in her next lessons, she could easily do one lesson for fighting each team. "Russet, order up! Go get your weapons and get down here." Ruby yelled, watching Yang pat a rather worried Russet on the back, before shoving her off in the direction of the weapon lockers.

Sitting herself down once again, Ruby looked around the room before smirking. "So, who here..." Ruby began, only to be interrupted.

"HEY RUBY, CAN'T WE ASK YOU STUFF?!" She heard, looking towards the speaker and recognizing her as Nora, definitely the most excitable of the new students, if her cafeteria stunt was any indication. Leaning back, Ruby nodded towards the girl, smirk still on her lips. "Well, can we know two things? One, how did you know Yang, and two, who else are you fighting today?" Nora asked, ignoring the groan Yang let out and having everyone be reminded of that fact.

"Oh, that's easy. I know Yang through her uncle, he dragged me to their family home more than a few times, usually drunk during it. I actually know Yang on a personal level because she always used to drag me around and beg me for sparring practice." Ruby said pointedly, her grin growing at the embarrassment evident on Yang's face. "And I'll be fighting Russet, then a bit more talking before sending you off for lunch. In the coming lessons, I'll be fighting each first-year team individually, then figuring it out from there. Now, can I get back to my original question?" Ruby asked, watching Nora nod, though she sighed when she spied Russet entering the arena. "I just know I'm gonna forget it now."

"Forget what?" Russet asked, fastening her quiver in place and tilting her head at Ruby.

"Ahh nothing. Same rules, no explaining needed I hope, you ready?" Ruby asked, tilting her head when Russet actually shook her head.

"I just want to ask whether these are okay?" Russet asked, walking closer to Ruby and pulling an arrow out from her quiver, letting Ruby inspect it with a whistle.

"These are Ya(Japanese Arrows), aren't they? Ruby asked, smiling widely when Russet nodded enthusiastically. "They'll be fine, though a few may end up breaking if I have to strike them with my dagger." Ruby said, handing the Ya back to her student, who took it quickly, placing it back in the quiver and distancing herself from Ruby, taking up a wide stance a fair distance away and drawing a small bar from behind her, unfurling it and letting Ruby watch as the Yumi(Japanese Longbow), a Namisun-sized one if Ruby's mind wasn't deceiving her, formed in front of her. Grabbing several Ya from her quiver, Russet quickly stabbed them into the ground, grabbing one and nocking it, half-drawing the bow and smiling at Ruby, who just nodded at her.

"So, ready now?" Ruby asked, drawing her dagger and watching the girls grip tighten on her Yumi as she nodded. "Then, let's begin!" Ruby yelled, stepping forward and watching the girl pull the string back, loosing her arrow towards Ruby, who side-stepped it, turning her body to watch the Ya fly by in amusement. Turning her head back to her opponent, Ruby watched her grab another Ya, smoothly bringing it up to her Yumi and drawing the projectile back in a single motion before releasing it, though the arrow met the same fate as its predecessor, flying past harmlessly.

Groaning, Russet was about to collapse the Yumi and use her other weapon, but Ruby sped herself up just as she went to reform the weapon, stepping in close and forcing Russet to swing her bow, gripping the end of one of the limbs and bringing it to bear towards her, warding Ruby off from her strike temporarily but having the added effect of unbalancing her. Using a touch of her semblance for a boost, Ruby broke into a slide, slipping under the swinging Yumi and lashing out with a foot at Russet's ankle, kicking it out and making the girl fall, whilst Ruby again tapped on her semblance to send her a small distance from the girl, allowing her time to stand up and put her weapon away, as it was clearly ineffective.

Seeing the girl lay her hand on her other weapon, Ruby smirked, already overlaying an image from the past over the girl, seeing someone different holding their weapon in much the same way. Tossing her dagger up, Ruby lunged forwards, grabbing the dagger from behind her back and swinging her arm, bringing the momentum around fast on Russet, who drew her blade and parried the attack in a swift motion, though she had to fight her instinct to re-sheath her blade, bringing it in front of herself unsteadily and watching Ruby closely, who had a wide smile.

Tossing the dagger from one hand to the other, Ruby watched Russet try to calm herself, her hand twitching towards her sheath every so often. As soon as her hands stabilized a little, Ruby ran forwards, swinging the dagger for Russet's face and watching her bring the blade to guard the attack, though that let Ruby swing her fist at her mid-riff, impacting hard and knocking the air from her lungs.

Deciding to end the fight there, Ruby brought her dagger around the hilt of her opponents blade, wrenching it from her grip with her superior strength, only to be surprised when, for the first time that day, she felt cold steel running across her aura.

Falling back quickly, Ruby looked on in amusement as she saw the dagger in Russet's hand, though she was equally angry at herself for getting overconfident and forgetting that her opponent might have a hidden weapon.

"Well, that's par for the course for me, huh? That'll be it for this fight. Well done Russet, seriously. I didn't expect anybody to actually hit me today. Few things. One, get used to using your Uchigatana outside of Iaido, you were wavering for a good long while trying to not resheath it. Two, I loved how you used the Yumi like a polearm or something to ward me off. And, of course, using the dagger to get a hit on me, pretty sneaky if I do say so myself, something even I'd do occasionally. I can honestly say, and Yang would back me up, that I didn't let that slip by me deliberately, I just didn't see it coming. Now, go on, I'll wait until you're up there to say what you need to hear."

Waving Russet off, Ruby turned to the students with a smirk on her face. "Well, that was fun. Now, some of you may think that was under-handed, and to you I say...you're idiots. And yes, I'm not afraid to call you that. I mean, at the end of the day, if I'm willing to do whatever it takes to win, and my opponent isn't, chances are I'm not the one who ends up with a knife in my chest." A few students, Weiss included, gasped at that, whilst Yang burst out laughing. "In a fight against another person, as long as it helps you win, very few things are too under-handed. Slipping a dagger from a sleeve and jamming it into their ribs, throwing dirt into their eyes, do anything you can, because in a fight like that, you are far more likely to survive if you can ditch those notions of honor and duelling and bring every unfair advantage you can. If you have friends around, gang up on them, kick between the legs, attack if they get distracted."

"Now, I can see some of you are judging me, but to be honest, I don't care. I've been in enough fights to know this, and I had to lose a few things that were important to me before I realized that being a Hunter isn't a fairy-tale dream. If you act like it is, it'll turn into a Grimm-infested nightmare for both you and those you leave behind. Against the Grimm, honor is meaningless anyway, and when you fight a human opponent who wants to kill you, it's in your best interest to do almost anything to survive. Of course, a few things you should never do, like using a bystander as a human shield to survive an attack, that kinda thing is frowned upon, but you get the point...Yes Weiss?" Ruby said, cutting off her lecture when she saw Weiss had her arm raised.

"Miss Rose, you say all this, yet in ALL of our duels you had an opportunity to attack us while we were down, but you stood back instead, isn't that hypocritical of you?" Weiss asked.

"I-...Yo-...Are you serious? Weiss, if I wanted to, I could have won those fights with one hand tied behind my back whilst doing a Vacuan dance, and drunk on firewhiskey. The reason I let each of you regain your bearings was because of two reasons mostly. Firstly, I was measuring your skills. If I smacked you all down without seeing your semblances and abilities it'd be useless. And secondly, this is an example of a tournament spar, not a fight to the death. In an actual fight, sure, use all those things, but spitting in your opponent's eyes and throwing dirt at them isn't exactly smiled upon during tournaments, for example the Vytal Festival, which I would ask you don't do. Seriously. They'd have my head if I told my students to spit in the eyes of their opponents. Though, if you want to amuse yourselves, look up the ROVR vs SLVR round a couple of years ago, and keep your eye on me. You won't regret it." Ruby said with a smirk.

Watching Russet walking up to her seat, Ruby waited for her to be seated before continuing. "Now, as some of you have no doubt forgotten, I'm also doing Dust studies, so don't be late for that. I really don't want to have to hunt you down and drag you to class. With that out of the way, a few pointers in general. If the rest of you lot want a chance to actually hit me, I'd recommend you either practice against a fast opponent, or start carrying and using some hidden weapons. But please, be creative. Don't just have a dagger on your back. Guns in your sleeves, impact grenades, kick-blades, try and break the status quo! But please, keep it reasonable. If one of you makes a thermobaric explosive or a cluster-bomb I'll personally chuck you off the cliffs." Ruby said, smiling when the class collectively laughed at her little joke. "Now, off with you all!"

Watching the class file out for a few moments, Ruby walked out towards the locker room with a smile on her face and a skip in her step, happy that her first lesson went well.

* * *

**Yes, I know, it was awful.**

**A few things, Russet uses a Namisun Yumi for her Kyudo attacks, an Uchigatana for Iaido strikes, and has a Valean steel dagger on the small of her back, which is what she used against Ruby for her sneak attack.**

**Ruby will probably fight JNPR and CRDL off-screen, I don't know their fighting styles enough to write stuff like this easily. Though I will address how she...'handles' Team CRDL after Cardin's comments about her and Yang in the Initiation, she hasn't forgotten.**

**How did you guys like the fighting scenes though? I think the fact that Ruby uses a dagger against everyone except Blake who dual-wields is a pretty solid testament to her skill. And her comment to Weiss is a pretty apt way to measure her against the students. I mean, she's had 4 years of Beacon training and a year of live combat. And of course, when she was in school she'd have been in the top 5 of the current class from her skill with a scythe and the fact that she's a goddamn prodigy, keeping up with school despite being 2 years younger.**

**Next chapter is gonna be lunchtime and then Dust Studies, and I have some fun ideas. I bet a few of you forgot that Ozpin said she's restarting the Dust Studies class in chapter 2 =P**


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter 13**_

* * *

If there was one thing Ruby could say with certainty that she hated about her new life, it was the paperwork. Make that two things, paperwork and staff meetings. Sitting in her comfortable chair, desperately trying to fight the urge to put her feet up on the desk while she looked over pieces of paper endlessly, Ruby could at least answer the question. The question, the one on almost every student's mind as they watched the man run about faster than even Ruby was capable of...just what was the reasoning behind why Oobleck drank so much coffee? And if the stack of papers in front of her was evidence of just how much paper a teacher had to go through in a day, Ruby was probably going to find herself on the other end of the coffee-liking spectrum, sharpish.

So, when the door rattled gently as a fist knocked against it, Ruby welcomed the distraction happily, pressing the button on her desk which opened her door, and smirking at the awed face of Jaune that met her, his hand poised to open the door. It was one of the first little inventions she'd made after coming back to Vale, needing something to occupy her time between her return and the school year starting. In actuality, the little device was just a little dust-powered piston which pulled the door open and pushed it closed, alongside a small magnetic lock to keep it closed.

Still worked in confusing and amazing the students, since it wasn't something you could just see every day. And, as Jaune stepped into the room, still looking between her and the door, Ruby finally threw him a lifeline. "It's my own little design Jaune, don't worry about it. Everything okay?" She asked, smiling at him when he finally stopped staring at the door and fixed her with a look.

"I-uh...Miss, I need help." He said simply, as if those words would somehow convey his problem to Ruby through magic or telepathy.

Steeping her fingers, Ruby leaned on her desk, the smile never fading from her lips. "Well, I am a teacher, what specifically is the problem Jaune? If it's your combat score...well, I honestly can say that just more general training would be a good idea. Heaven knows what kind of idiots you went up against to get your scores, but they must have been impressively bad if you were the one who...oh sorry Jaune, I kinda...I didn't mean that." Ruby said quickly.

Waving her concerns off, Jaune gave a sheepish smile. "It's fine, Cardin beat me into the dirt. Guess Beacon really is a step up from other schools, huh? Anyway, I...well, Russet said I should come and speak with you because Cardin kind of..." He stopped there, frowning as he tried to find a way to word his way around anything which would tip off the woman in front of him about his transcripts.

Little did he know, all the staff in Beacon knew about his forgeries. In fact, it was a major point of contention during staff meetings, with Ruby herself being a rather vocal supporter to sending the boy to a proper combat prep school, as the things he'd be trained in at Beacon would go far over his head, wasting both his and their time. Though Ozpin, in his infinite wisdom, used his 'I'm the Headmaster' shtick to overrule them, leaving many of the faculty rather angry at his blatant nonchalance at the danger the boy was in.

Didn't mean she couldn't toy around with the boy a little. She hoped that getting Cardin to show him his skill-gap would push the boy towards realizing that his idea was a bad one, but alas, it seemed he was far too stubborn, or just plain stupid, to realize it. "He has you by the short hairs for something, doesn't he?" She asked bluntly, ignoring Jaune's stammering in favour of closing the door behind him, preventing any prying ears from hearing their conversation.

"Look, Jaune..." Ruby started, sighing as she rubbed her eyes. "You're a leader now, right?" She said more than asked, waiting for him to nod slowly before continuing. "Then you have to put your team before yourself. I mean, look at me." She punctuated this by swinging her arms up and above the table, letting him see the scars crisscrossing up and down her arms. "All but maybe two of these injuries were because I was protecting my team. Sure, I could have avoided some of them, but if I did, then rather than a small injury which won't affect me or the team much, the injured one would be a teammate, and the injury would be severe, enough to cripple their performance."

"Now, that's not to say you should always leap in front of every claw that a teammate will take, that's stupid. You have to accept that your entire team is almost definitely going to get at least a few scars, that's just in the nature of anyone who hunts Grimm. But, just as each of these injuries were gained protecting my team, there were times where if my own team didn't take a hit intended for me, I would have been critically injured. So, you have to protect your team, but at the same time, learn to lean on them." Ruby smirked at the slightly glazed look on Jaune's face as he absorbed her words.

"So...W-what should I do about Cardin? This isn't a problem I can swing Crocea Mors at." He looked forlornly at his hip, where the sword would normally rest.

"No, but not every injury is physical. What Cardin is doing will tear your team apart if you aren't careful. So talk to them. Explain it as much as you can, and see about blocking Cardin out from whatever he's using against you." Ruby did play around with the idea of letting Cardin push Jaune from his team, but the chances were that Jaune would never leave Beacon, he would just be a drag on his team, wasting everybody's time. So, instead, she could use the opportunity to instil some values in the boy and maybe get him motivated enough to train harder than before. Who knows, maybe he could get to a Beacon initiate level...after a year perhaps.

"B-but, what if what he has is bad enough that they won't be enough?" Jaune asked fearfully, fully aware of how fast Ruby's tone would change if he let slip that he didn't have actual transcripts.

"Jaune. Listen to me. Whatever Cardin has, unless he revealed that you were plotting to murder someone, or had a semblance of mind control or something, it's probably not as bad as you think it is. I remember one time some asshole snuck into our dorm, got some pretty uhh...exclusive photos of me when I was showering, and then tried to blackmail me into doing stuff for him. Needless to say, I kicked his ass across the dorm and ignored him, and so he shared those pictures around. Of course, it was embarrassing as hell to hear people remarking about my body, but after a while, people forget and move on to the next big event." Ruby said calmly, almost bursting out in laughter as Jaune's face went red as a cherry.

"Now, I trust you understand what I'm saying with that little tidbit, right?" She leaned forward to punctuate her point, only leaning back when Jaune nodded. "Good. Now, as fun as this blast into my past was, I do have paperwork to sign, and if I'm recalling correctly, I have some suspiciously similar homework assignments from a...Team CRDL to authenticate. I trust I won't be finding papers like this again Jaune?" She raised her eyes from the paper to stare into his eyes as he shook his head.

"N-no Ma'am!" He yelled quickly, almost shivering at the look he was giving him. As she waved towards the door with a subtle press of her button, which still amazed Jaune, he realized something and turned back to the woman, who raised an eyebrow. "Umm, Miss?" He asked quickly.

"Yes?" She said simply.

"Do...why aren't you...you know..." He trailed off at Ruby's smirk.

"Some bright spark pointed out I may have been getting just a tiny bit too pushy with basically demanding that students call me Ruby, so to be honest, as long as it isn't Miss Rose, I don't really have a problem with it. I still want people to call me Ruby, but I'm not gonna be nearly as pushy."

"Oh...okay. Thanks, Ruby!" He said cheerily, walking out of the room and leaving a rather perplexed Ruby in her office.

* * *

When Ruby saw the familiar chair she had stared at for years from her place as a student, this time...Ruby was unable to resist her urges, and as the first students trickled into the classroom, they were met with the sight of Ruby Rose, leaning back on the rear legs of her chair, and her feet up on her desk, a smirk on her face. To the few students from older years who were attending the class, seeing Ruby doing that wasn't a surprise, a common sight in their lessons. Though, of course, she'd changed places from where the students sat to be at the teacher's desk. Thinking more on that though, many fell into glum moods when they followed their train of thought and realized there was no Olive to swat her head and make her sit properly, slumping into their seats with frowns.

One of them though walked up to Ruby with a smirk of his own, ignoring Ruby's quick yells to stop as he dodged the hastily thrown stationary, zipping behind her and, in a very reminiscent style to Olive, swatted the back of her head with just enough force to tip her forward.

"Damn it, even with her gone I just can't kick back and lean on a damn chair!" Ruby yelled, the giant smile on her face betraying her as she slung an arm out for a hug, which the student took happily. "It's good to see ya Jay!" She cheered, and the younger students, who were speechless at the student so brazenly hitting their teacher, all relaxed at the smirks present on all the older student's faces, as well as the familiarity their teacher showed the student.

"You too Rubes." Jay replied happily, bringing his other arm around to give her a proper hug. "I'd say I missed you, but you know I can't tell a lie!" He cheerfully claimed, chuckling along with Ruby before unclasping his arms from around Ruby. "Don't suppose you could conveniently forget about our end of year pranks?" He asked hopefully.

"Jay...Jay Jay Jay my main man, I hate to break it to ya, but Ozpin kinda already knows about all the details for our pranks, as well as who did them. He really chewed me out for the prank we pulled when I was in Third Year..." Ruby shuddered at the reminder, and Jay blanched. "Yeah. Guy has eyes in the back of his head I swear. I mean, it's not like I meant to hit him with it, I wanted to get Goodbitch!"

"Well, glad we didn't go ahead with the prank last year...he wouldn't have been happy with us."

Ruby eyed Jay suspiciously, one eye keeping track of how many students had entered, frowning at the absence of the normally punctual team RWBY. "Why?" She drew out the Y, keeping her gaze on him as he shifted in place awkwardly. "Wait, don't tell me you guys were planning on continuing what Violet and Roux planned?!" She exclaimed, eyes widening when he nodded. "My god, you really are insane. That shit would've probably gotten you expelled permanently..." Ruby threw a glance towards the clock on the wall, and then looked over the students again. "Well, better get to your seat, I've got something nice and practical for the first lesson."

Giving him a gentle shove, Ruby shifted her chair back slightly to make it easier to stand, her eyes still fixed on the door even as she pulled open a drawer and set out some papers. And, just as the minute clicked onto the hour, the door burst open, and team RWBY burst into the room, charging down the aisle and into a half-empty row. "Sorry, Ruby!" Russet chirped, earning a smirk from her as her team all settled down in their chairs, though Ruby didn't miss the look Weiss had on her face.

"We wouldn't have to be sorry if Yang didn't spend an extra half-hour on her damn hair!" She punctuated this by glaring at the blonde in question, who merely threw her hair about a little.

"Can't rush excellence Weiss." Yang said simply, and both Weiss and Ruby facepalmed.

"Miss, please don't tell me she's always like this?" Weiss practically begged Ruby to prove her wrong, only for her hopes to be shattered as Ruby merely nodded sadly at her, though her lip was twitching upwards slightly in amusement.

"Afraid so Weissicle. Gah, I remember that time Qrow was in a hurry to leave for some mission in Atlas, but you were already showering and made him wait a full damn hour before you were done. You used the same excuse then, didn't you Yang?" Ruby folded her arms as Yang rubbed the back of her neck.

"Hey, I staked my claim for it the night before. Not my fault he came in after I said it." She said simply, a smirk on her face.

"Yeah. Ahem, sorry about that everyone. Welcome to Dust Studies. To those of you who don't know, I'm Ruby Rose. I don't mind being called Rose, Miss or Miss Ruby, and I'd prefer being Ruby, but call me Miss Rose and so help me I'll put an activated case of gravity dust in your locker." The smile on her face offset the casual threat...slightly. "Now, this class is a bit of a mishmash, since the last time Dust Studies was a class was way before my time, and the entire curriculum is out-dated to the extreme, so please bear with me."

Pulling open another drawer, Ruby retrieved a vial of dust, placing it on her desk and standing up, kicking the drawer closed as she did so. "Now, can any of you tell me what kind of dust this is?" She asked, watching several sets of hands go up. Pointing out one student, she watched them stand quickly, smiling.

"That's glass dust isn't it?" They said, and Ruby nodded, gesturing for them to sit back down.

"Good job. Yes, this is Glass Dust. Now, I can already see a few of you are confused by this, so let me explain dust to you." Ruby left it unsaid that the most confused person on the room was undoubtedly Jaune, smirking inwardly at his completely confused expression. "I'm sure you've all heard of the four basic dust types, yes?" Seeing most of the room nod, Ruby continued. "Well, can you list them for me in alphabetical order?"

A loud cacophony where several people deliberately went in reverse or just at random sounded out, but the majority of the room recited "Earth, Fire, Ice, Wind." quickly.

"Mhm. Now, These are, obviously not the only dust types. Hmm, Nora, can you give me an example of another type of dust?" She asked of the girl, and heard the very predictable 'lightning' be announced by the girl. "Lightning Dust. Now, if we want Lightning Dust, who in here knows the two prerequisite dust types needed to produce such a dust...you?" She pointed to another student.

"Umm..." They quickly flipped through some of their notes, finding a page quickly and reading for a moment before standing. "I-is it Earth and Wind Dust?" They asked more than said, and sighed in relief when Ruby nodded again as she waved vaguely in their direction to sit down again.

"Earth and Wind dust. Combine the two together, and you get Lightning Dust. Rapid-fire round, if you add...Wind, Fire and Ice, you?" She pointed to a random student, and they muttered 'Polarity Dust' without standing. "Okay, good. Earth and Ice?" She looked to another student, and they thought for a second before shrugging. "Okay, be sure to write it down, you?" She pointed to the student next to them, who said 'Dark Dust', quickly pointing it out to their partner in their notes. "Correct. If I was to need some Energy Dust...Weiss?" She finally gave the girl a release, as she seemed ready to explode in her chair.

"If you combine Wind, Fire and Earth Dust together, Energy Dust will be produced in an equivalent quantity to the amount input in the process, which is used in many of our electronics and vehicles. Many believe lightning du-" Ruby cut her off by raising her hand.

"Thank you, Weiss. Now, last one, Russet, if I wanted to make this-" She raised the Glass Dust on her desk to her eye. "-how would I go about doing it?"

Standing up shakily, Russet thumbed her pages for a moment before sighing. "Earth and...Fire?" She asked sheepishly.

"Yep. Glass Dust is produced through Earth and Fire Dust. Now, can anybody in here tell me what Glass Dust is actually used for?" Weiss was the only first-year to raise her hand, the only other with hands up were older students. Deciding to be a bit mean, Ruby deliberately pointed at Jay, in revenge for ruining her relaxation. "Jay, you should know this one." She announced, watching the boy sigh dramatically before standing up.

"Glass Dust is typically used for producing Bullhead windows, viewing screens, and other necessary translucent barriers. The most common usage in terms of combat is by telekinesis users, such as Miss Goodwitch, or people with specific glass-based semblances. Other than that, it is not combat-oriented dust. Though you still tried using it." He sniped back, and Ruby fought down her embarrassment to merely smirk, even as the boy sat down, a triumphant smile on his face.

"Well, might as well throw some extra trivia in. Yes, I used Glass Dust in an emergency, and no, it's not something you should try. I used it because it was an emergency and it was all I had available. While it was quite pretty to look at since it trapped Grimm like sculptures and formed around them, it's really not useful as a regular weapon, and it leave a ton of waste behind."

"Some of you are probably asking what would happen if I were to mix secondary Dusts together. Say I took some Lightning Dust, and I mixed that with Water Dust, what would happen? The easy answer for most of those combinations is...nothing, the dust doesn't react with the other dust and instead just sticks to its original composition."

Clapping her hands together, Ruby re-focused the class on her, waking a few from their half-dozes, before pulling out a second vial from her desk, smirking at the gasps that several students gave. "Now then, can anybody tell me, and no Weiss, not you, what this dust is? Anyone at all brave enough? No, fine. This is Time Dust. As volatile as Psionic Dust, as dangerous as Fire Dust, and about as hard to make as...well, something very hard. Can someone please tell me what happens if you mix Time Dust with...let's say Glass Dust?" She punctuated this by picking up the vial of dust. Seeing only one arm up in the whole room, Ruby frowned. "Anyone other than Weiss? Anyone at all? No? Fine. Weiss, please go ahead."

Snapping up from her seat, Weiss took a moment to clear her throat. "If Time and Glass Dust is mixed together and activated with Aura, the Time Dust will freeze time in a small area, and will quickly burn away. Without Glass, time will freeze for everybody in the area, but when Glass is added to the mix, the Dust will affect everybody without the same aura as that which activated the dust, thus allowing hunters to freeze time in emergencies and flee from danger. Unfortunately, due to the danger of manufacturing Time Dust, the number of times this tactic has been used can be counted on two hands. But, in the same vein, due to how hard Time Dust is to obtain, it cannot be used for nefarious purposes, as even large quantities of Time Dust are only enough to stop time for a few moments. Enough to dodge a Grimm claw, but not enough to steal anything important." Weiss ended her little speech by putting her hands on her hips. "The creation of Time Dust is also heavily moderated and strictly enforced, which makes obtaining it nearly impossible, even for veteran Hunters."

"Yes, yes, very well done Weiss, though even you have to admit that you not knowing that would be like a Huntsman not knowing what a Grimm is. Now, as Weiss said, Time Dust is pretty powerful, but very short-duration and absurdly hard to make. This amount here- "She shook the vial gently. "-is worth about fifty-thousand lien in raw material alone, not counting the manufacturing difficulty, and of course the licenses and regulations you have to jump through. Only Hunters and heavily-vetted companies can even handle dust, let alone produce it. I mean, imagine how easily you could, say, steal a Bullhead if you just froze time and walked up to it, the guards and pilots unable to do anything. One moment, the bullhead is idle on the pad, and the next it's spooling up and flying away."

"Now, I'm sure I've bored you all enough with all this theory, so let's get practical. Today let's get some experience with possibly the easiest dust to produce, Water Dust. Ice and Fire Dust mixed together. There's an entire chapter for this in your books, so I'll entrust you all to it. There are aprons over there on the wall and labelled canisters of dust in the cupboard. Take one each, and work with your assigned partner on this."

"Uhh, Ruby..." Jay raised his hand, and Ruby sighed.

"Yes Jay, I know you don't have a partner right now, I'll give you a hand. Now, if anybody manages to freeze their hair, or burn their hand, tell me immediately. I don't want to be told about it when I see frost on your eyebrows and charred skin on your fingers." She glanced around the room and, satisfied, waved towards the cupboard. "Oh, last two things. First, if anybody does manage to blow themselves up somehow, you'll be getting extra homework on safe dust handling. And, to whoever gets the worst quantity of dust by the end of this, you get the joy of being my assistant for the week. This will be a recurring thing, so if you mess up one week, someone else will be the assistant the next week, as you get exempted for that week. Everyone got that? Good, get on with it."

* * *

**Awesome Author's Assistant Mid-roll Lesson Time!**

**Lesson of the day: Dust Grades, yay!**

**Okay, so, dust in FireFlux's Universe goes off a grade system. Dust can be anywhere from Grade-1 to Grade-10. The grade of dust tells you the quality and the power of said dust.**

**For example, Yang would use Grade-1/2 Fire Dust for disposable training shells, Grade-3/4/5 for hunting regular Grimm, Grade-6/7 for rare Grimm like Nucklavee's and such. Dust in grades higher than 7 is extremely rare and expensive, for good reason. A single grain of Grade-10 Dust is equivalent to a kilogram of Grade-5 Dust, and a ton of Grade-1.**

**And, as the power increases, so does the danger and the value of the dust. If an error occurs whilst crafting Grade-1 Dust, a small puff of flame will sprout, and nothing else. Grade-2 is also not very worrying, a small spout of flame.**

**Grade-3 is where it gets a bit more serious, as there is enough flame to cause some actual damage. Jumping up a bit, Grade-6 is enough to fill a whole room with fire.**

**If Grade-10 Dust became activated during manufacturing, it would have enough power to level the entire factory. And thus, the higher the quality, the more regulations and the higher the price.**

**Now, manufactured Dust like Time, Water, Lightning etc don't have grades. Mixing together a grain of Grade-10 Fire and Ice Dust will produce Water Dust of the same power as a grain of Grade-1 Fire and Ice.**

**But, since the author is a lazy cow (Hey shut up you!) they haven't yet planned out why exactly secondary Dusts don't have grades other than, and I quote, "Time Dust is already stupidly fucking OP, if I gave it a Grade-10 version you'd freeze time for a damn hour!".**

**So, look forward to another mid-roll, where I can explain some of stupid shit FireFlux gets up to! - Also hiya everyone! I would explain who I am, but I can hear Fire stomping over in a strop to yell at m-ACK!**

**...**

**This is FireFlux, ignore them. I totally know what I'm doing. Anyway, yeah, that's how dust works, I just wanted to explain it so I can use Grade-10 dust to scare people, like "It's Grade-10 Fire Dust, don't come near or I'll blow the building to pieces."**

**Anyway, back to the story!**

* * *

"Well, while this is an unorthodox way to learn about dust, I can't say it's a bad way to go about it."

"Admit it Weiss, she knows what she's talking about." Yang said, leaning back on her chair. "I mean, she taught me how to handle fire dust and make shells from it. Without her, I probably wouldn't be able to use Ember Celica nearly as effectively, since I'd have to rely on pre-cut low-grade dust."

"Hmph, I refuse to believe that you of all people would be capable of handling dust safely and effectively." Weiss punctuated this by sticking her nose in the air, adopting a typical snooty pose. A pose that faltered slightly when Yang stopped leaning on her chair, a feral grin on her face and gleam in her eyes.

"Oho, is that a challenge Ice Princess?" Yang asked, cracking her knuckles and noting with glee that the Heiress actually looked a tiny bit nervous, though she filed it away behind her indifferent mask once again.

"Fine. Let's make a wager out of this. If you succeed in making dust safely, without any explosions, I'll...pay for all your hair products during our first year." Weiss proposed, and Yang immediately nodded her assent to that, already dreaming of all the expensive bottles she could buy. "But, when you fail..."

"Mhm?" The sudden intrusion of Ruby's voice interrupted Weiss's thinking, making the pair of girls jump suddenly. "Oh come on Weissicle, I want to know what you'd want from Yang." Leaning in closely, Ruby stage-whispered just loud enough for Yang to hear. "She has a seriously suped-up dust bike called Bumblebee she has only let me ride once." And leaned back, smirking at Yang's rather angry visage, her hair faintly glowing. "Better remember those lessons I taught you, Yang."

"Mmm, yes that sounds reasonable. If you fail this challenge, I would like to ride on your dust bike" Weiss announced, much to Yang's dismay, though she quickly turned it against Weiss with a lecherous smirk.

"You know, if you want to ride my dust bike, you could have just asked, though it's a bumpy ride." She said, her smirk still on her face as Weiss tried to figure out the hidden meaning with a frown.

"But Ruby said you never let anybody...hang on...oh Yang, that is completely depraved. Honestly, how your father and Ruby put up with your constant sexual jokes I will never know."

"Lots and lots of practice. Tai already got tons of jokes like that from...uhh, never mind." Ruby snapped her mouth shut, wincing at the sceptical gaze Yang gave her. "Look, don't uh, don't look into what I just said much you lot. It's not my place to explain Tai's past to any of you, and I'm sure I don't have to lecture you again about this Yang, right?" She looked unflinchingly at Yang, whose glare would normally have been nerve-racking, but to Ruby, it was like a puppy trying to intimidate an elephant. After a few moments, Yang sighed, waving her warms in defeat and turning to Weiss.

"Okay, let's shake on it. by the end of the lesson I'll have a list of products for you to buy!" She claimed loudly, sticking a hand out, which Weiss stared at for a moment before sticking her own hand out daintily.

"I will look forward to seeing this...'suped-up dust bike' you have. I imagine it to be just as boisterous and flashy as you are." She returned, smiling at Yang's sheepish look. "Now, I imagine Ruby is running out of patience."

"And you'd be right. Now, get on with it." She waved at the canisters of dust on their desk before walking up to Jay with a smile. "Well, 'partner', shall we get started making some Dust?"

"Just so long as it doesn't end up like that time you froze the entire building." He retorted, a smirk on his face.

"THAT WAS ONE TIME!"

* * *

**Phew, that was fun. being back writing this after two weeks of Grimm Reality and Brutal Truths, it feels nice.**

**Now, a few things this chapter.**

**Firstly, how did you like the Dust-Grade system? I think it's a nice way to measure the power of dust, and relatively balanced. Pretty much everybody in RWBY canon normally uses between grade 1-6 Dust. Anything above Grade-5 is pretty much unobtainable to any normal Hunter, both because of how expensive it is, but also the regulations the Councils put upon it.**

**And, secondly, my illustrious helper made an appearance (Hello!) not that I really asked them to. I already had Dust-Grades planned out, but I didn't know how to put them into the story, so they kinda just took over and wrote that out for ya.**

**Now, in case any of you were wondering, no, none of my stories are going to stop. Some of them aren't going to be updated for a while, but that's not just because I'm starting up work, it's a mixture of that and the fact I'm just so tired of writing them. Crimson Dovah will have a chapter out before the end of September, I promise you that, but I make no such promises for Alagaesian Anomaly.**

**All my other stories are far more random, but Broken Watch will probably be getting a new chapter soon!**

**And, as always, I hope you enjoyed. Please do review this and tell me what you liked, what you hated, and how many errors slipped through the cracks.**


	14. Chapter 14

**I'm not dead I swear, so quit your whinin' =P.**

**My profile does go into depth as to why I basically dropped off the face of the earth, 1/2 chapters on the weekend are the name of the game from now until sometime around December.**

**Also, to the guest reviewer in Falling Into Petals, I don't recall promising to upload a chapter last weekend. And FIP interested me, whereas this did not. I did have 500 words written out on Saturday, but I got a bit bored and kept writing that story instead of this...I am now kind of tempted to make this Ruby into a Faunus, for the sheer fact that I want to, and it's cute...**

**Anyone got a problem with that? Faunus!Ruby for the win!**

**Anyways, on with the chapter...**

_**Chapter 14**_

* * *

"Miss Ruby!"

The voice of Weiss called out to Ruby, just as she was leaving her office, and she had to suppress a sigh at being held from her evening. Though she did manage to do so, plastering a smile on her face and turning to face the girl. "Hello Weiss, do you need me for something?"

Patting down her slightly dishevelled dress, Weiss frowned for a moment before finally sighing. "Not you particularly...I just...I can't help but think that Ozpin made a mistake."

"Oh?" Ruby quirked an eyebrow at the girl. "And what mistake would that be? I do hope it isn't something about me! Gah, the indignity, not even a month in and already there are complaints! The horror!" She said dramatically with a hand to her forehead, managing to wrangle a small smile from the girl. "But seriously, what's up?"

"It's just that...I've been brought up for leadership, every day would be training and training to one day take over my father's company. By comparison, Russet got tossed in without a day of leader experience." Folding her arms, Weiss glared at the wall. "I just don't understand why Ozpin would pick her over me."

The sound of Ruby snorting snapped Weiss's attention back to the teacher. "So-" Another snort. "Sorry Weiss. I ju-just, oh man that's funny." Taking a moment to wipe her eyes, Ruby ignored the glare Weiss was giving her. "Oh, that was good. Weiss, I don't think I should say this to ya, but if you missed the point there, you're kind of an idiot." Raising a hand to forestall her angered rebuttal, Ruby continued. "Look at it like this. If you were the leader of the team, what would you learn, hmm?"

Watching her grapple with that question for a few seconds Ruby smirked. "And then think of what Russet will learn, in a nice, safe environment. Now, if Russet gets injured, who is perfectly placed to step in and take temporary control? None other than her partner of course. Now, there are probably other reasons besides that, but you get the gist of it. Don't forget that I was two years younger than everyone in my year, yet I was still made a team leader, much to the chagrin of a few other teams. Needless to say a few rounds in the ring and they changed their tunes."

"I can see that. But...I get it now. I don't really like it, but I guess it's the same reason why Jaune is a team leader rather than Pyrrha?" Weiss said more than asked, frowning when Ruby smirked.

"Yep. See, you're getting it now. Though, Jaune is a bit of a special case compared to your own leader, the same kind of idea follows through. And anyway, Pyrrha is far more used to fighting alone, so she wouldn't have the extra training for leading that you have. But I do see where you come from in that regard, she is far more experienced than Jaune is." Ruby finished with a nod. "Now, is that all you needed?"

Weiss looked about a bit before biting her lip, and Ruby quirked an eyebrow. "Weiss, just come out with whatever you want to say, I don't bite. Unless I have no other option...then I kinda do." The light joke managed to ease Weiss's tenseness somewhat, but the girl still seemed worried, so Ruby sighed at her. "It can't be worse than wanting to depose your leader."

That did the trick, and Weiss burst into stammered protestations, before realizing what Ruby did and frowning at the chuckling teacher. "Hmph. I just wanted to know more about you. I mean, you tell us stories occasionally in class, though nothing like Professor Port's tall tales." Ruby snorted at that. "But we don't really know anything about you. And when I tried to get more information, I couldn't find anything we hadn't already heard about. It's a bit of a giveaway that there's a secret when a gaping hole is left in your information." Weiss finished, putting a hand on her hip and smirking.

"Well, I can't exactly say much about that. I wasn't the one to do it in any case. And hey, if you want to know more about me, at least buy me dinner first." Ruby winked at Weiss in an overly exaggerated way, before her face turned serious again. "But I would also have to caution you to not look too deeply, Heiress."

The tone of Ruby's voice sent a charge down Weiss's spine, and the mismatched eyes of the teacher had a hard edge as she looked at the girl. "Being curious is good, but delve too deeply and the things you'll find might follow you back."

Suddenly clapping, Weiss almost fell over in surprise at Ruby's action, and the hard eyes from before were gone, replaced as a mirthful look came across her face. "Seriously though Weiss, you got anything else important? I kinda need to go find some food, and plenty of paperwork to mark still...Unless you want to help?"

The rate at which Weiss stammered out a goodbye and bolted down the corridor put a firm smirk on Ruby's face, and the woman watched the girl disappear around a corner before sighing and reaching for her scroll, quickly thumbing through her contacts, pressing one and raising the device to her ear whilst darting back into her office and closing the door. With a barely suppressed growl, she instead took a deep breath when she heard the sound of the scroll connection clearly.

"Ru-"

"YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT!" The voice of Qrow Branwen was cut off immediately. She didn't even give him a moment to speak, immediately getting control of the conversation. "Seriously? Did you just waltz into the CCT, pick up my entire fucking file and throw it out the window? Because I just had Weiss fucking Schnee come up to me and sat there's a gaping hole in my information, which is, coincidentally, the first I've heard. Totally not fucking suspicious there."

The connection dropped almost immediately, and Ruby's arm twitched as she almost threw her scroll at the wall. Only the reminder of how much of a hassle it'd be to bug Ozpin into giving her the contacts she needed...again, stopped her from breaking the little device. Instead, she glared balefully at it, confident that the drunkard would either fix the damn problem or pass it on to Ozpin to fix at some point, leaving her free to ignore it.

Turning away from her rather enjoyable hobby of willing her scroll to melt through glaring alone, Ruby couldn't stop the genuinely tired sigh that escaped her lips. Looking over her office again quickly, Ruby had to resist the urge to just leave it all behind and go to Vacuo, or Atlas, or somewhere the bitch wouldn't be able to find her. But no, she again argued with herself that if she left, the fire bitch would likely go after Beacon, and while she wasn't strong enough to take on Ruby, her Maiden powers would still let her defeat pretty much anybody in Beacon if she could get them one on one.

Plus, if Fall attacked somewhere that Ruby could have been, it would mean getting any revenge would be that much harder, especially if the cow got herself killed in the process.

Leaving her office for the second time, Ruby closed the door, then banged her head against it, muttering. "Can't even fucking remember what I wanted to-oh...crap." Ruby then noticed the girl who was walking towards her intently, and Ruby had to resist the urge to just go back into the office, lock and barricade the door, and swear the entire day off.

Biting back the angry question on her lips, Ruby instead took a breath and settled into a more normal position. Not that leaning against a door looking like she'd fought off a Goliath barehanded was a bad look for her, it wasn't very conducive to being approachable. Maybe that was where she went wrong if it meant students would stop interrupting her evening.

"Miss, Headmaster Ozpin told me to come get you for something." The girl quickly blurted out, and Ruby raised an eyebrow at her.

"O...kay? Why'd he not just send me a message on my scroll?" She asked, folding her arms.

"Uhm...well, I have to go this way to get to my dorm anyway, and he got a message on his own scroll then sighed and, since I guess he knew where my dorm is somehow, told me to get you on my way past. He muttered something about birds...?" The girl added helpfully, and Ruby nodded at her with a smile.

"Cool, thanks uhh...What's your name?"

The girl brightened up slightly, and opened her mouth to respond when another girl came around the corner and saw her. "Oh, it's Neo!"

* * *

***Fire, please stop adding new characters.***

**NEVER! I shall make as many as I want, then subsequently lose track of them and have them come in during the final chapter as if to totally tie them into the story and whatever...**

**Okay, I'll stop, sawwy!**

***You can have a few. Lord knows Russet is hard to write, but seriously, YOU HAVE TOO MANY. Trying to organize all the OC's of all the different stories is like juggling a dozen flaming knives with no experience. It's impossible.***

**I said sorry, jeez...I think people may be getting annoyed with this mid-roll thingie by now...**

***Ehh screw em, what are they gonna do, not read the rest of the story?***

**Uhh, yeah, exactly that.**

***Oh, shit. Uhh, hiya everyone...again. I heard people don't really like the dust mixing stuff Fire wrote up. And that you liked the Grade system I came up with. I finally have something to lord over Fire, hooray!***

**No you don't! I came up with them you prick, you just dumped them in the middle of the story!**

***Ehh, potato potaato, still gonna wring it for all it's worth.**

**...**

**I feel like I'm going just a little bit insane now...**

***That's cool, we're all a little insane sometimes.***

**Whatever, sod off and let me wrap this up.**

**So, sorry about the shorter chapter...and the 2+ weeks of no updates...and then not telling you guys much of what's going on...IM SORRY! I swear I'll try harder, I did write out 1k of this last Saturday, but Falling Into Petals grabbed me by the gills and bitch-slapped me into writing 10k words for it. And Illustrious helper over there (Hello again) wasn't much help, nattering on about how cool they thought the story was.**

***Meh, guilty as charged. When are you doing a second cha-HURK***

**Right. See you next week everybody, I need to go shove Illustrious off a building.**

**NEXT CHAPTER: When it's ready =P**

**(Also thank you Guest for pointing that out...I kinda fucked up. I meant to put gills. Yeah, that's right, I'm a fish...Are fish genderless? I need to go research that now!)**


	15. The White Fang?

**Kept you waiting, huh?**

**..._Really Fire?_**

**Yes, really =P Also, I'll admit it, I had way too much fun listening to really hype music whilst writing the fighting scene at the end of this chapter...And YES, there's a damn fight scene you fight-hungry bastards. I was going to leave it to next chapter, but I just kept pushing further and further until the whole scene was already written.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

**(And I swear, if I get one more message demanding chapters, so help me I'll make Ruby run around in an Oum-damned ballet dress singing 'I'm a pretty pony', I fucking swear it.)**

_**...Bit harsh there Fire.**_

**'And you can fuck off and all!'**

**(By the way lovelies, if any of you know where that quote comes from and tell me, I'll send you an internet hug! I thought it was Shaun of the Dead, but...it kinda wasn't, and I can't find it!**

**_Chapter 15_**

* * *

If there was one thing Ruby could say she missed when she was still an active huntress outside the walls, it was the simple act of walking down a street and seeing all the different people going about their business.

Just on that one street she could see children playing a rousing game of tag, elderly people enjoying their retirement calmly, young couples strolling about aimlessly and taking in the sights, with all the different people in between, and she knew that it was her actions alongside those of the hunters that came before her and those who would become the protectors after she was gone that allowed the people of Vale to live in relative safety.

She knew that the safety they enjoyed was rather fragile, and not quite as safe as they believed. Her own nightly activities said as much, not that she kept up with them anymore, being far too busy in Beacon. People would always seek to undermine others, just to get a leg up in the world, and the bitch that slipped through her fingers was no exception.

Idly, she pondered exactly what that fire-using cow was up to. Even busy as she was, she kept an ear out for anything that could be construed as her taking action, but so far nothing. A few small warehouses got robbed by someone capable of using fire to melt metal, but that could easily have been somebody just using fire dust to melt the walls down, so it didn't seem likely. Besides, it was far more direct of a tactic than the woman ever used, so out of hand Ruby had already dismissed it.

As she laid eyes upon the building she came down to Vale for, a familiar black-clad girl strode around the corner in a tizzy, clearly agitated with her arms folded as she all but stomped down the pavement for a few steps before her amber eyes locked with Ruby's and she froze. "Hey there Blake, something up?" Ruby asked casually, putting her hands in her pockets and smiling at the girl.

"Uhh...I, I have to go." She stammered out quickly, turning to cross the road and bypass Ruby, who frowned at the girl, before deciding her own little problem could wait and darting over to the fleeing girl, startling her. "S-seriously, I need to leave."

"And why is that Blake?" Ruby purred, looking back the way the girl came and tilting her head. "Are you running from something? Or...someone perhaps? Oh, is it an old lover, or maybe even a current one?" She roted off, watching with an inward jump for joy as the girl blushed in embarrassment.

"W-what, no, NO! No they aren't a lo-" Blake started to say, before she froze and grit her teeth at the teacher, who had a smug grin on her face. "You did that deliberately, didn't you?"

"Yep!" Ruby chirped shamelessly. "Now, come on, what's...or rather who's, eating you? If you want we can go find a cafe and you can tell me all your juicy gossip!" Ruby announced, frowning when Blake made to try and leave her behind again. "Come on Blake, help me help you. If you don't tell me what's wrong, how can I tell you how to fix it?" A drawn-out sigh from the girl was all Ruby received. "Blake, look at me." When the girl refused, she laid a hand on her shoulder and pulled her sideways until she was facing her. "Look at me. Do you honestly and truly want to be left alone? Say it, and I'll let you go."

Blake squirmed for a moment before lowering her head. She didn't want Ruby to go, she wanted to talk to someone, but she just...she had nobody she could trust. Her team probably hated her, she didn't know anybody else at Beacon, and if she told Ruby then she'd go and tell Oz...pin. "Ruby, you know how you said you were going to take a kind of councillor role?" When Ruby smiled and nodded at her, Blake perked up a little. "Well if...if I tell you what's wrong, can you swear you'll keep it between us? Keep it confidential?" She asked nervously.

"Blake, as long as it's not something massive like you were planning to bring a shipping container of dust into Beacon and detonating it, I promise I'll keep it between us, and nobody else unless you give your express permission otherwise. I promise that by...uhh, I guess I promise by my mother's grave, that's a strong one to promise on I think." Ruby frowned as she tried to think of whether that was reasonable.

"Okay...okay. Let's go somewhere more...private."

* * *

To say Ruby was surprised was a little bit of an understatement.

She'd already picked up on Blake being a Faunus, her bow twitching was something even a mediocre hunter would spot a mile away. But that wasn't why she was so surprised. Being told that the young girl in front of her practically grew up for most of her life in a terrorist organization, and left only recently, was a much bigger surprise. And, as she thought on it, Ruby swore to punch Ozpin in the coffee mug next time she saw him, now that she knew all those little odd looks and smirks he gave when looking at Blake.

"Hold up, let me get this one hundred percent straight and narrow. You WERE in the White Fang, you left during a mission when they wanted to blow up a bunch of civilians, and then enlisted in Beacon as a way to repent for what you've done, but decided that you didn't want to be discriminated against so you hid your heritage beneath a bow, and told literally nobody? Am I getting all of that correct so far?"

"Yes, that's correct." She said succinctly, taking a sip of her drink.

"Okay, so then, a monkey Faunus gets exposed stowing away on a ship and runs away, evading police custody, Weiss Schnee, just gonna emphasise, SCHNEE, calls him out for breaking the law, and then lumps him in with the White Fang and calls them criminals and degenerates, which is kind of true, before blaming them for the warehouses that have been getting robbed. Then, you two get into an argument before you mention that 'we were tired of being pushed around', immediately after that running off without trying to explain or anything, thus making you look pretty damn guilty in their eyes. Cue running into me, getting dragged to this lovely cafe, and here we are. Is that all the prudent information?" Ruby looked questioningly at a rather sheepish Blake, who just nodded meekly. "And what were you planning on doing afterwards?"

"I-I don't know?" She muttered quietly. "I don't have a way to prove the White Fang aren't monsters or degenerates, and even if I managed to find out which warehouse was being robbed next...I'm worried that when I get there, it really will be the White Fang doing it..." She dejectedly admitted, folding her arms on the table and putting her head down upon them, hiding her eyes. "I just...I don't know what I want to do anymore." After a few moments, an oddly pleasant feeling made its presence known atop her head, and for the first time in many years, Blake had her ears pet, unconsciously leaning into the gentle touch.

"There, there." Ruby said softly. "This is why you're a student, Blake. So you can learn and grow. Leave all the nasty stuff to those older than you." She muttered quietly, glad Blake's head was down and eyes weren't able to look at her, so she didn't have to see the rather cold visage that briefly appeared on Ruby's face. Already her keen mind was running through ideas, plans and counter-plans. She had initially planned on just letting the regular hunters deal with whoever was robbing the warehouses since it wasn't really her responsibility anymore. But with one of her students directly invested in it, perhaps a little intervention would be useful.

With a final pet, Ruby withdrew her hand from Blake's head, smirking at the pout on her face that she quickly tried to hide away behind an expressionless mask, and failing hilariously. Apparently the Faunus liked having her ears pet more than she wanted to let on. "Now then, I need to get back to what I was doing, and you should get back to your team." Blake opened her mouth to protest, but Ruby wasn't having it. "Blake, they're your team, and they're worried about you. Besides, it's not like they all have squeaky clean pasts either, I'm sure at least two of them have skeletons in the closet. Why, Yang trashed a Night-club during a temper tantrum and only got away with it because the place is well-known as a criminal's paradise. Not that they could stop Junior from keeping the place open, nothing can touch that guy." Ruby remarked idly, mostly to herself, before standing up, with Blake following suit.

"Now, you've got two...maybe 3 I guess, choices. One, you can run away from your team, from me, Beacon, Vale, all of it, I wouldn't recommend it though. Two, you can go back to your team, explain yourself, and mend that bridge before it breaks completely. Three, you can come with me for a bit, I need to go see a guy about...something." At Blake's skeptical look, Ruby waved her hands about casually. "Nothing serious, just a routine check on something, promise. Huntress' honor!" She clamped a hand over her heart.

"Uhh...ca-...can I just stick with you for a bit? I need to clear my head before trying to talk to Weiss without breaking down and arguing with her." Blake tapped her fingers on the table, looking everywhere but at Ruby.

"Sure, why not, I'd enjoy the company." She said breezily, dropping a few lien on the table and leaving the cafe with Blake trailing behind her. "You know, I didn't say that you should be following me around like a lost puppy. Honestly, raise your head a little Blake, the floor ain't gonna eatcha." She nudged Blake with an elbow. "Come on, trust me, it won't be that bad. Why I remember one time I had to camp in the Emerald Forest for a week when I accidentally set fire to the dorm-room and burnt...a lot of stuff." She rubbed the back of her neck while Blake covered her mouth to hide her widening smile. "Roux never quite forgave me for melting all her Achieve Men disks..." A quiet chuckling from Blake told Ruby all she wanted to hear, and she gave the girl a happy smile. "See? It's not as bad as you think it is, just trust me Blake." Ruby softly laid a hand on the girl's shoulder as they walked. "And hopefully I'll be there to make sure of it, eh? A bit of moral support'll do you good."

Blake smiled again, a small little upturning at the edges of her lips, but it was enough. "So, what's the something that's so important you have to go see someone about it?" She asked casually, while Ruby smirked as she took her hand from Blake's shoulder and stuck her hands in her pockets.

"Well, I'd rather leave it as a surprise. I just hope you've got a...moderately strong stomach, I know a few of my friends got a bit nauseous watching this..." She trailed off with a dazed smile, but not missing Blake's face blanching as she worried on what exactly Ruby was going to go and do.

* * *

Watching Ruby settle down on the chair was bizarre for Blake.

When Ruby said it might make her nauseous, she got quite worried that they'd be seeing something truly gruesome, but trusted that Ruby wouldn't show her anything too traumatizing. But, much to Blake's surprise, they entered a pretty quaint and un-marked little building on the same street they encountered each other on, and Ruby waved her in before closing the door and pressing a button on the wall, which Blake heard ring a bell in the distance thanks to her still concealed ears, though she let them twitch about a bit more now that the cat was out of the bag so to speak.

A rather average looking man in a lab-coat with glasses came out to greet them, drawing Ruby into a brief hug before giving Blake a once over and whispering at Ruby too quietly for even her hearing to pick up on what was discussed, chuckling softly at something he said. Blake trusted Ruby wouldn't say anything incriminating, but she did subtly move her hand closer to Gambol Shroud out of instinct to protect herself.

Before she could worry more, the two started walking further into the building, with Ruby beckoning her after them, even as she continued her quiet conversation, which is what led her to her current, and rather confused, situation.

"Right, let's begin. Miss Belladonna, if you could please take a seat over there, I'd rather you not accidentally get in the way." The man said calmly whilst pointing at a chair, and Blake jumped to it quickly, not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on. '_Does Ruby think I'm squeamish about needles of something? She said it was a routine check, so that lent credence to it, but surely if it was a medical thing she could just go to the hospital for it_.' She thought to herself as she sat down.

What Blake was not quite prepared for was the large machine above them to suddenly swing down and end up in front of Ruby's face, a few genuinely disturbing-looking implements attached to it. Watching Ruby turn her head slightly so her black eye was facing them was also a bit worrying, though the ease she did it and the calmness she exuded put Blake at ease at least slightly.

"Oh, right, Blake, if you want to ask anything about...well, this, just say, okay?" Ruby leaned slightly to look at Blake past the machine, and Blake swallowed once before nodding quickly. "Or just ask the good doctor over there." She waved at the man, who was tapping away at a terminal and gave a half-hearted flail of his arm, which could be interpreted as a distant cousin to a wave if Blake tilted her head and squinted.

Hearing a quiet whirring noise, Blake turned to look at Ruby again, and her jaw dropped when she saw the machine suddenly stab into her eye, almost bolting out of her chair in surprise. What tipped Blake off to the fact it was expected was that, other than a small wince, Ruby gave no indication that what just happened was out of the ordinary. "R...uby...what..." Blake trailed off, and Ruby smirked even as she kept her head almost perfectly still.

"Well, it's bloody hard to see it, but there's actually a super faint scar across my eye from a fight I had a while ago. Thing is, in that fight, my eye quite literally got cut in two, unsalvageable. So I got a new one." Ruby said succinctly, smirk still on her lips. "But I need to get it checked out every once in a while to make sure it's still in tip-top shape. I mean, if my eye started running even a little behind my natural one, the two different images would start over-lapping as I saw two different times, meaning my vision would get really distorted. There's more to it than just that, but the gist is that I have to come here and get it checked, okay Blake?"

Blake could only nod and watch as the machine shifted, occasionally removing the inserted piece from Ruby's apparently fake eye and inserting another implement into the eye. "So...how did you end up losing it? Was it a Grimm?"

Chuckling humorlessly, Ruby smiled. "No, it was against a human. Real...bi...uh, a real piece of work to be sure. She could summon swords like they were nothing, managed to get a strike in that would cut me in two, and still lost my eye trying to evade it. Managed to stab her hand with a dagger and caused her to lose an entire warehouse of dust and minions, so I think that's pretty even, especially since the whole lost eye thing wasn't even permanent."

"I'll say!" The doctor suddenly called across the room, interjecting himself into the conversation easily. "You and that eye pretty much keep me in business all on your own!"

Rubbing the back of her neck again, Ruby smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, that's the problem, this eye is damned expensive. Like, outright buying an apartment in Downtown Vale expensive. It's worth it, don't get me wrong, but the reason you don't see every hunter who loses an eye having it replaced is simply that it's too expensive to afford for most of the regular hunters. And of course when they get injured suddenly they're less effective at fighting, thus making less lien and meaning they'll likely never afford the lien for an artificial eye."

"I...see." Blake said softly.

"Well, whatever." Ruby stretched her arms out behind her as the machine withdrew for seemingly the final time. "Hey Blake, you wanna go on a hunt with me?" Ruby suddenly announced, surprising Blake who just looked at her in confusion. "Aww, y'know, a hunt. Or do they...hmm, I should really ask Oz about these things sometimes. Oh well. Never mind! To be honest..." Ruby made a big show of looking at her wrist, despite not having a watch on. "You should probably head back to Beacon. If you feel like you'd be too uncomfortable to stay in your dorm-room trying to answer questions tonight I'll just tell Oz that you need some time for a problem and you can stay in my room.

When Blake squawked in surprise and tried to deny sharing a room, Ruby folded her arms. "Blake, three things. One, you clearly aren't ready to talk to your team, so you need somewhere to stay. Two, there's no way in hell I'm letting you stay in Vale for the night. Three, I'm not going to even be in my room tonight, I've got something I have to deal with. And four, my word is final on this kitty-cat." Ruby punctuated this by sticking her tongue out, and Blake simply slumped her shoulders in defeat, quietly muttering that she said four things, not three, and resolutely ignoring the stifled laughter from the doctor still in the room. "Besides, my room is a damn sight better than staying in a temporarily and practically unfurnished room. If I do end up dragging myself into Beacon during the night I'll just use the couch anyway."

Frowning, Blake looked at the doctor, hoping maybe he could give her some advice to avoid having to stay in Ruby's dorm-room. To her dismay and embarrassment, he just stuck two thumbs up and grinned at her. "Ugh, fine."

Ruby smirked again as she rose from the chair idly rubbing her fake eye. "Just a word of warning. If Goodbitch comes a'knocking, keep the damn door closed under all circumstances up to and including Beacon being over-run by Grimm. If she ever got her hands on some of the stuff I keep in there..." Ruby shuddered at the thought, and a wry grin appeared on Blake's face.

"I'll be sure to do that, but you owe me one now." Blake claimed.

"Riiight, like you don't already owe me at least twice so far Blakey." Ruby replied easily.

* * *

Cinder thought it was quite strange re-entering the same warehouse it all went wrong that evening almost a year ago. Back before the 'Bloody Rose' came and fucked it all up. She had Torchwick on a leash, she was hopeful that, despite their initial adamant refusal, the White Fang would eventually come around to working with her, but above all else, she thought she'd had everything planned out, with contingencies for her contingencies.

And when a depressed Ruby Rose hellbent on revenge came back to the Vale, the entire fucking thing came crashing down, reducing the proud Maiden from a feared name in the Underworld to being pretty much nothing. The only jobs she could even get any more were ones where the crews didn't know her name, and she could act under an alias. And those were pocket change compared to what she used to command.

It didn't help that the bastard thief went turncoat and basically exposed over half of her resources to the hunters, in exchange for amnesty for his little pet, with a lighter sentence for himself. It still surprised her how, for as detached as he made himself out to be, the little Ice-Cream bitch still came above himself in terms of protection. Perhaps if she'd noticed that beforehand, she could have used it for further insurance against him.

But, the warehouse was still just that, a warehouse, and whilst out of her ownership, the contents were still very much up for her to grab. All she had to do was sneak inside, take what she needed, and leave again. After her last job, the crimelord-turned-petty-thief decided that the information on good warehouses wasn't worth being forced to work with men who had the intelligence of particularly dull children.

Oh sure, they got into the warehouse easily enough because of her abilities, but then they got greedy, tried to take too much, and she was left fleeing on foot with very little gained, whilst the idiots got caught in a firefight and wiped out by a hunter. Weighing the pros and cons of the entire thing, Cinder just decided that picking out her own targets would be far more efficient for her.

She swiftly closed the door behind herself and melted the metal around the handle to stop it waving in the wind since the lock was broken, and Cinder stood stationary for a few moments in the dark to allow her eyes to adjust, her ears straining slightly to hear for any movement. From what she gleaned through observing the warehouse for a while, there were no security guards for the building, but she didn't want to be caught unawares.

She'd picked an entry point on the roof, owing to her knowledge of the building from the past, as it would allow her to look upon the rest of the warehouse from the raised catwalk and pick where she wanted to begin searching. It had the added benefit of letting her look for anybody who might have been inside. She was fairly certain that nobody was left inside, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Silently sneaking along the metal catwalk, cautious to not place her weight awkwardly and make the metal groan, she afforded herself a glance to a specific part of the warehouse. The Maiden felt her lips twitch up in satisfaction at the faint brown stain still trapped upon the floor of the warehouse. The Bloody Rose managed to ruin her plans and injure her hand, but she definitely extracted a toll for it. Not nearly enough to make up for the humiliation of watching her empire crumble, but certainly enough to give some small level of satisfaction.

As she stepped slowly down the staircase towards the warehouse floor her senses, finely tuned as they were, screamed absolute havoc at her, and she instinctively dodged nothing at all. Blinking, Cinder crouched down, both hands poised to summon up a pair of swords while she scanned the warehouse. Her senses had calmed slightly, but she still felt the constant icy grip that told her she should get out, she was in danger, something was about to kill her.

Never before had her senses lied to her, they'd gotten her away from several daggers in the back before, yet despite the abnormal feeling, there was absolutely no indication that anything, not even a mouse, was even alive in the warehouse beside herself. Nothing had so much as made a hint of noise, but she just couldn't shake that feeling.

With a shake of her head, Cinder peered once more into the darkness, almost willing something to move, something to suddenly jump from the darkness and give her a target, but nothing came of it. Cinder lowered her arms slightly from their ready positions and stood slightly straighter, still ready for combat but not in a moment's notice, and began walking towards a random crate, keeping her ears peeled and eyes darting about warily.

Again, her senses flared, and Cinder twitched downwards and raised her hands, but again, nothing happened. "Fucking ghosts." Cinder muttered to herself, weighing the pros and cons of just burning the warehouse to the ground and moving on, but decided that at the very least she should look for something to make the trip worthwhile, so she kept walking towards the crate, jamming her fingers under the lip and wrenching it open, grunting with the effort.

Feeling the spine-crawling feeling of imminent danger again, Cinder twitched into a high crouch, but didn't bother raising her hands out of exasperation, and the fact she still had the wooden lid in one hand. Glancing about, the woman was ready to just yell out a curse and spray fire everywhere, but a glint of metal caught her eye from the crate she had just opened, and she took her eyes from her observation of the warehouse to look at the little crates arrayed neatly in the box. "Jackpot." The woman reverently whispered to herself, as she gazed at the dust canisters with glee.

If she was less addled with thoughts of getting revenge, she may have noticed the quiet thump of a person handing on the ground. Unfortunately, in her whispers of plans, she missed the sound. What she didn't miss, however, was the rather loud sound of a bolt being pulled. She had nary a second to flare her aura before the gun fired, and the crate in front of her was hit, sending fire and lightning dust exploding in a cascade of destruction, throwing the woman's body away like a ragdoll and lighting up the interior of the warehouse like a bonfire.

Impacting the wall hard, Cinder took a moment to try to collect herself and come up with some kind of plan, but a fist in her gut put that down fast, and she found herself gripped by the collar and bodily thrown across the warehouse again, smashing into a shipping container and buckling the metal. But, in that moment, she caught a glimpse of her assailant, and she growled in fury, spitting out her words like they were toxic, as she glared at the cloaked figure.

"Bloody Rose."

* * *

"Bloody Rose."

Hearing that name coming from the woman in front of her almost stalled Ruby's advance, but it wasn't enough to stop her as she lunged forward with her semblance and buried her fist in the Maiden's stomach again, punching her through the metal and drawing the breath from her lungs.

Watching her stop her rolling with a small burst of flames just confirmed what she thought. Ruby honestly wasn't sure whether the 'Queen' was actually the robber, she hoped that when she toppled her criminal empire that the woman would have died or fled. Apparently she was in the city the whole time, trying to scrape together something, probably some ill-planned attempt on her life again.

Cinder had already tried to kill her a few times since their first proper meeting, where Ruby stabbed her through the hand and Cinder had cut her eye out, though they were always indirect attacks, using weak goons to try and catch her unawares. Perhaps in the days before she lost her team she might have been naive and weak enough for that to work. But that was before Ruby spent a month in the wildlands running from the Red Fang, with said group trying their damnest to hunt her down and throw them into the pit with her team. That was before she gained the moniker the 'Bloody Rose' for brutalizing the abominations who hunted her through grimm-infested forests like prey, turning the chase against them and turning their cave of nightmares into a pit of hell, with corpses strewn about like confetti.

Meeting Cinder's furious glare with a cold gaze of her own, Ruby let her happy-go-lucky facade slip away below the sheets like a child afraid of the monster under the bed, and drew her blades. Her weapons had seen a lot of death, and while recently they had also taught, they had much to do to make up for all the killing they had achieved. Sure, the 'people' she killed were the scum who clung to the name like parasites, barely eligible for the species, but for all she loathed them, they were still humans.

With a silent bell, the two women plowed forward, Cinder drawing her own glass swords to meet the red-haired woman in a clash.

'_Up-swing, lean sideways avoiding thrust, stab dagger forwards, cross blades, crouch and sweep-legs, roll from fire attack, dive away from glass spike, parry downward swing, riposte with dagger - grazed ribs, MASSIVE FIRE-DODGE!'_

Ruby leapt upwards onto a metal support and quickly patted out the small fire latched onto the singed ends of her cloak, eyes still focused on Cinder, who was holding her side and glaring at Ruby, her eyes glowing from the power she had unleashed. Ruby knew this moment was where Cinder would, in the past, start monologuing at her, but the two women were far too experienced for that. Giving such a massive opening in a fight was a stupid idea, and it'd let Cinder try to subtly cauterize her wound, something Ruby wouldn't allow, even if it meant she had to get up close and personal with a fucking Maiden.

Taking a single breath, Ruby kicked off her perch, her semblance enhancing her speed, and plowed straight into Cinder with both blades. The grating sound as her own blades raked across Cinder's conjured ones made her cringe slightly, but she grit her teeth and kept pushing, smirking slightly as the Maiden was forced back ever so slightly.

Feeling the strength behind the glass blades waver, Ruby gave a final push and smirked as she drew her blades back just as Cinder did the same and slammed her knee forwards into a surprised Cinder's face. During the block, Cinder had deliberately acted as though her arms were weak to try and draw Ruby into over-balancing herself and pressing too far, leading Cinder to throw her over herself and stab upwards into her. Unfortunately, Ruby had seen through it and used it against her, making her lower herself in anticipation for Ruby's over-balance, and placing her body perfectly for a knee to the face.

The crunching sound that Ruby heard as Cinder's nose against her kneecap broke was music to the woman's ears, and she allowed a mere half-second to relish it before reality kicked in again and she fully swung her leg, kicking Cinder away before she could get her bearings and counter-attack, sending the fallen Maiden rolling across the warehouse floor before coming to a stop with a groan.

"Is that really all you can do now?" Ruby's cold tone surprised even herself, but she shook it off and watched Cinder push herself up, one hand on her nose, eyes still burning furiously. The other woman didn't respond aside from spawning her bow and futilely trying to fire an arrow off. The speedster wasn't to be caught by an arrow as she darted over to Cinder's side and kicked towards her head, only to be deterred by a sudden wall of flame.

Retreating a decent distance, Ruby watched Cinder raise up into the air and surrounded herself with flames, muttering a silent curse. It seemed that since the last time they clashed Cinder got a far better handle on her powers. Why she hadn't already attacked her with them was a mystery, perhaps they relied on pain and rage, something Cinder was certainly feeling with her broken nose.

However, as Ruby watched Cinder cock an arm back and coalesce flames in front of her, she knew that, for now, dodging would be a good idea, and she began zipping around the warehouse, dodging fireballs as the Maiden grew more and more agitated with her. No matter how many she fired, the Bloody Rose simply wasn't hittable. With a furious yell, Cinder conjured a giant wave of fire, sweeping it across the entire warehouse and burning everything in sight, clearing the entire building in one swoop, and leaving a burnt Ruby stood exposed, with no cover left to dart around.

When she saw the fire coming, Ruby did the only thing she could, and crossed her arms before her face and chest, using her aura to stop as much of the attack as she could. It still left her with injuries, such a catastrophic attack couldn't be fully blocked, it'd take something like Ozpin's shield ability to stop so much power, but she definitely mitigated most of it.

Looking around quickly, she definitely did something to save herself, considering even the steel containers were now just melted slag on the ground. A gasping sound drew Ruby's attention back to the fight, and she saw Cinder stood there, breathing heavily, her eyes still burning with fury as she glared.

Doing a quick mental inventory, Ruby knew she was pretty vulnerable right now, a single well-placed arrow would probably break her aura, and then she was vulnerable to regular attacks, let alone Maiden abilities.

But, like the bell ringing for school, sirens that had quietly but steadily getting closer suddenly gained in intensity, and red lights began flickering in the windows. She saw Cinder's mouth move as she glanced at the windows, and Ruby made to attack her with a step, but a sharp pain in her gut stopped her. She looked down, and frowned at the sight of a jagged metal shard in her abdomen.

It was clear Cinder hadn't planned on that, since she was eyeing Ruby closely with a perplexed look in her eyes, and a smirk on her face, though she only did so for a moment before she began running, giving Ruby a few moments of satisfaction at seeing the once-proud woman fleeing like a beaten animal as her world went dark, and she collapsed in the warehouse.

* * *

**I said things would pick up a little. Of course, with Roman and Neo being dealt with by the Bloody Rose already, and the White Fang refusing to work with Cinder (See Chapter 11), things are a bit different. However, how'd you guys like that fighting scene? I liked writing like that, imagining the character moving and dodging like that, it's my favourite way of reading and writing fighting scenes, but it's hard to do since you have to almost perfectly visualize the entire fight.**

**I quite enjoyed writing this, though next chapter is probably gonna end up back in Beacon for more Teacher-y goodness, yay!**

_**But the people want combat!**_

**I don't care! Teacher Ruby in Beacon is awesome, chapter 10 is my fucking favorite, and fuck you all if you think differently!**

_**I will admit, the 'Goodwitch made a joke, the world ending is nigh!' quote is pretty damn good.**_

**Aww, thanks Illustrious! By the way, please, if you see errors or stupid things I've done, PLEASE TELL ME! I hate when I look over old chapters and occasionally see spelling errors that have been there for literal months, it's agony. Thanks Boos!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Okay, a literal day after chapter 15 went up and I'm writing the start of this chapter. You all owe this to Peter Jackson and J.R.R Tolkien =D.**

_**Uhh, Fire, how exactly is that?**_

**I'm glad you asked! Fellowship of the Ring is the answer to that. Watching the Skirmish at Amon Hen inspired me to being this early, mostly because of the second scene.**

**-...Okay. I promise, I genuinely did start writing this at that time. I just got distracted by Hana Nanashi and War Dog...and Eternal Game. So yeah.**

_**Chapter 16**_

* * *

As Ruby became aware of the world around her again, the first thing she did was clenched her eyes the moment she blinked them open, blighted lights glaring into her eyes be damned! The huntress waited a few moments and slowly cracked her eyes open again, darting her view around the room the moment she could see past the blurriness, before relaxing somewhat.

Waking up in a hospital was not a new experience for Ruby. More than once she'd pushed herself to aura exhaustion and beyond, ending up in critical condition because of it. So, as she opened her eyes to familiar white cleanliness and that irritating antiseptic smell that pervaded many hospitals, she knew immediately where she was, in a room she'd stayed in before. Having been forced to spend several days in bed, she'd memorized the little niches of the many ceilings in the rooms she was forced to remain within, and this one was one she recognised, which let her figure out exactly where she was in the hospital.

Though she wouldn't admit it, a brief flash of panic flowed through her when she realized her weapons might be missing, but a look at the side-table beside her bed revealed her weapons, alongside her cloak and clothes, though she could see quite clearly that her shirt had been slashed through, probably by the paramedics when she was found. It was a shame, she liked that shirt, but she knew that considering she still could easily feel the burns adorning her body, it was the right move for them to make.

But brother gods help them if they damaged her cloak. It was damn tough and could self-repair to a degree, but if it was completely shorn through into pieces, it wouldn't even repair itself properly. It would still work as a cloak, but it wouldn't be the same. Fortunately for the medics and their continued existence, the cloak looked just fine, the frayed ends being the only lingering sign of damage.

Damage.

As she thought over her fight with the renegade maiden, Ruby frowned. She hadn't really managed to do much to the woman, and while the burns on her weren't serious, they were still more than Ruby could claim to have achieved. The only notable damage she caused the maiden was the flesh wound to her torso and the knee to her nose. Both would heal up with time and aura anyway, but when incorporating her maiden abilities, Ruby suspected that Cinder would have been healed before Ruby even woke up.

"Ruby."

The voice at the door startled the huntress, and she realized she was so far gone in her thoughts that she never heard the door open and close, a fact that slightly frightened the woman. "Ozpin." She said curtly to the man, glancing away from him to look at her equipment, then back at him with a frown on her face. "What kinda firestorm did I set off last night then?" She asked bluntly.

With a sigh, Ozpin took a moment to frown at the bed-ridden woman, before raising his thermos, which Ruby swore was fucking magical, since he definitely didn't have it in hand when he came in, and taking a drawn out sip, his eyes never leaving Ruby's. "In terms of material damages alone, the estimated costs are so far upwards of three million lien. Due to the fact that you were technically on Huntress business there, you can expect to slip out of this by pinning the blame onto the criminal you were fighting."

"Oz, I was fighting Cinder." She interrupted Ozpin and folded her arms. "Before you even fucking say it, yes, I recorded it." She tapped the side of her head and smirked. "I'm not that dumb, why'd you think I went to see Arctorus? By the way, you should get him in here so we can take a look at the fight. Such a fucking shame she used her powers, since if you could just show them the recording all that paperwork would just disappear." A much nastier grin appeared on Ruby's face. "But I'm keeping my own copy."

Ozpin actually lost his emotionless mask for a second to glare at Ruby, though he shoved it all back down quickly with another sip. "Ruby, you know as well as I do what would happen if that information got out. There's a reason I-"

"Oh shut up Ozpin." She interrupted the immortal again. "And fucking listen. So far, you've gotten damned lucky Cinder hasn't cut loose and burnt the city to a...Cinder. Not the time?" His frown told her all she needed to know. "Whatever. Point is, at any point she could shatter the peace and bring about a massive wave of panic, potentially sending Vale into a Grimm-spiral. I'm sure we both don't want that."

"Fine." He grunted out, before pointing a finger at Ruby. "But if that video gets out, I'll know exactly where the leak came from. I may owe you a great deal, but favor can only be pushed so far little rose." The rather pointed name at the end made Ruby grit her teeth, but she bit back her retort and nodded at the man, who left without another word.

"Prick." She muttered quietly, thumbing her necklace before falling back onto her pillow and shutting her eyes.

* * *

'_Low-kick, dagger-lunge, cross sword over chest, push blade with dagger, drop dagger, elbow opponent, catch dagger in reverse grip, and...'_

Ruby brought her dagger up hard into her opponent her opponent in a smooth motion, smashing the thin blade straight through the metal casing and into the vulnerable electronics entombed within the body of her opponent. Ripping her dagger out straight towards her, she tore the machine's front open in a glorious display of mechanical gore, with oil spilling from the robot even as it attempted to fulfil its programming and attack her. With a lazy kick, Ruby sent the bot across the arena and into the wall like a bullet, wiping away the sweat from her brow as the buzzer rang out to indicate the robot was destroyed.

With a lazy wave, the arena dispensed another Knight-130 for her to fight, a handy gift from Atlas, as a sign of the 'mutually beneficial relationship' the two Kingdoms shared. A bunch of tripe, of course. The 130s were being phased out by newer models, and Atlas wanted something useful to do with them, so they sold them to the Academies to be used as glorified training dummies. The only good thing to come from the deal was the occasional inclusion of Spider Droids, though they were a lot rarer, which was a shame, as fighting them was a good bit of training, even if the end result was rather predictable.

With a casual gesture, Ruby bade the robot to charge her, sheathing her dagger and holding her sword in both hands. As the machine came in swinging, Ruby used her superior speed to parry and evade all the sword-strikes, occasionally scoring small lines in the armour of the Knight. Not enough to damage it much, but enough to tell her where her strikes were going. If she wished it, it would be a trivial thing to push the blades of her opponent up and lunge in for a thrust, but she wasn't interested in ending the fight.

That, and Ozpin had made it pretty damn clear that if she kept wrecking the bots like they were a lien a piece, he would cut her off. Somehow the stationary training dummy's she used to use just felt far too limiting to be worth using any longer. She would still use them sometimes, but she much preferred an enemy which would fight back.

She knew that somebody was watching her, almost physically feeling their stare on the back of her head, but she was far too interested in fighting to really care. If it was a student, then it'd just show them that she was far above their league. If it was another teacher, they'd already know the extent of her skills, having been the ones to teach her. And there really was nobody else who would be in the school anyway.

As the Knight came for another telegraphed overhead swing, Ruby raised her sword at a tilted angle to deflect the blade, stepping into the robots guard and smacking the butt of her blade against the chestpiece of the robot, simultaneously wrapping an arm around the machine and delicately flipping the small switch on the back to turn the robot off, satisfied that her itch for combat was scratched. At least, scratched as much as machines would do so for her. So, with a roll of her shoulders Ruby tilted her head around to look towards the entrance of the arena as she sheathed her weapon, smirking when a pair of familiar red eyes gazed back at her. "Well well, a little birdy came to roost. Shame you aren't a bee, I could make a killer pollination joke."

Seeing his eyes crinkling up in amusement, Ruby let her own smile appear on her lips. "Heya Qrow."

"Hey yourself." He responded, his hand twitching towards his flask, but the smile slipping from Ruby's lips was enough to stay that impulse, and instead he drummed his fingers against the metal container, almost as if torturing himself with the gentle sloshing of liquid. "So, you found her." The way he said it made it clear it wasn't a question, and Ruby hesitantly nodded.

"Yeah, I found her alright. Didn't honestly think she'd be there, just...had a feeling, y'know. I'm not exactly someone with an intricate web of spies and informants, but sometimes, I guess following a gut feeling just...works out." Ruby smirked. "Or rather, worked out, if the plan was getting toasted like a marshmallow." She gestured towards the few bandages still on her body.

"Maybe next time you shouldn't go it alone?" Qrow asked, quirking an eyebrow when she glared at him. "What? Ruby, we both know you're strong, but fighting a fucking Maiden alone is just asking for trouble. Unless you actually wanted to lose your other damn eye." Ruby's shocked look didn't dissuade the irate man. "When you came back to Patch missing an eye and ranting about Cinder, I hoped that'd have told you that you don't just fuck around with a Maiden. I don't exactly want to explain it again, so don't make me."

"Blah blah, they control nature without dust, whatever." Ruby waved her arm dismissively. "Doesn't matter if I get them to use up all their aura. A knife in the heart kills anyone..." Ruby looked thoughtful for a second before snarling. "Except Katya, that bitch seriously needs to learn how to fucking die."

"Katya?" Qrow asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Oh right, you were drunk off your ass for that story." Ruby raised her shirt and pointed at a scar on her abdomen. "Met her out in Vacuo, she had a tenuous tie to the Red Fang so I hunted her down. She put up a decent fight, but I plunged Silver here-" She tapped the sheath on her arm, "-into her chest, right where her heart should've been. But I'll be damned if ten seconds later she didn't get me good with a Kaiken and ran like a bat out of hell. I honestly thought she was dead, so either her semblance also mimics a near-death state, or she's damn good at pretending, and ignoring the pain being stabbed in the chest would do. Fucking Semblance bullshit, I swear. Or maybe she was a dextrocardiac..." Hearing Qrow chuckle prompted Ruby to angle her arm towards him and swipe her hand along her arm, catching the daggers guard and using a bit of aura to draw and throw the dagger, sending the blade flying towards him and embedding itself between his legs. "Fuck you."

Qrow just kicked the dagger up out of the wall and into his hand, throwing it back just as fast, trusting that Ruby was fast enough, even without her semblance assisting her, to snag the weapon. It never failed to amaze the scythe-wielder, watching her snatch the blade out of mid-air using the sheath mounted on her arm. She still used her crimson scythe, and Qrow was happy to see his training didn't go to waste, but it also gave him a warm feeling to know that she wasn't simply limiting herself to one weapon.

The scythe was absolutely lethal against Grimm, but less so against humans. His own weapon, Harbinger, covered for this with a single-edged greatsword form, which was rather handy when not against Grimm. Ruby could have made her scythe capable of collapsing into a sword, she was good at stuff like that, but when Qrow asked, she just shrugged, saying something about how she just preferred having her Crescent Rose separate from the new weapons. The man figured it was probably some way to keep herself anchored with her team, through her weapon, but he wasn't sure, and it wasn't a big deal anyway, she was proficient enough with the weapons already, and changing her fighting style to make her use another mechashift form in her scythe would just be aggravating for the pair of them.

"Well, you gonna explain why you're here? Y'know, aside from giving me a hard time for getting lucky slash unlucky with finding Cinder?" Qrow smirked as he folded his arms.

"What, I can't spend some time visiting Beacon, where both my Niece and my Protege reside?" Ruby's deadpan look made him quickly wave his hands about. "Okay okay fine. Oz wanted me back in Vale for the Vytal Festival. And~" He grinned at Ruby. "-he wanted me to try and convince you to take part in the tournament."

"And why would I want to just broadcast my abilities like that? If Cinder caught so much as a whiff that I was taking part in the tournament she'd make sure to record and analyze it a dozen times over to get an advantage over me. Besides, I'd much rather make sure your oh so special niece can actually make it past the second stage. She's strong, I'll give her that, but my fucking god she needs to get a grip sometimes. You've probably not heard this yet, but during initiation an Ursa clipped her hair, a single fucking strand, and she exploded." Ruby shook her head, putting a hand to her forehead. "She fucking lost it. And sure, anger is a powerful tool, but she went proper tunnel-vision on those Ursa."

Qrow frowned. "Ruby, you can't blame her for that, it's her semblance. It's like why you used to be so hyperactive, or why Oz always has that damn coffee mug." Qrow gestured at the ruined machines after a moment of silence. "So, you get all that anger out? Or do you need a new punching-bag?" His words were light, spoken in jest, but his eyes were firme,r the unspoken question passing easily between the two. Ruby shook her head, a smile coming unbidden to her lips.

"Nah, I'll be fine Qrow. It's...good to see you."

* * *

**Shorter, I know, but whatever. This is going up on the same evening that War Dog is, and I don't really want to wait longer to put them up. Like I've said a few times, unless the description says otherwise (Alagaesian Anomaly is the example here) or it's listed as complete, no story of mine has been abandoned, I just...don't want to write it at the moment. Broken Watch is probably going to get a chapter sometimes between now and Christmas, the same with Crimson Dovah and Engineer Extraordinaire, but not quite yet.**

**Thanks for the support, and please, don't forget to leave a review pointing out all the stupid shit I do wrong!**

_**Yeah, like forget that Feathered Rose exists!**_

**Shh you.**


	17. Chapter 17

**This one's a lot more...happy than the last.**

**No deep meaningful talks, no brutal combat. Just...some calm. Probably just before a storm but who knows at this point, since I have no clue what's going on half the time, and the other half I'm maniacally petting a white cat and swivelling in my executive chair!**

**...yeah I have no idea either...**

_**Chapter 17**_

* * *

"Jaune! Stop trying to mimic Pyrrha!"

Startling the blonde boy out of his stance, Ruby strode over to him, grabbing his arm. "Look at your shield Jaune." The boy did so with a confused expression. "Feel the weight, the shape, right?" The boy nodded dumbly. "Okay, now look at Pyrrha." Jaune looked over to see her staring back in confusion. "Pyrrha, can you throw your shield at that target please?" Ruby pointed to a dummy, and a second later Akouo was buried a foot deep in the target, the redhead looking back with a smile. "Thanks Pyr. Now Jaune, see how she can throw that shield so quickly? That's because it's a great deal lighter and more manoeuvrable than your own, but without sacrificing integrity."

Flicking her hand across the straps holding his shield to his arm, Ruby took Crocea Mors's sheath, mentally berating the idiot who named the shield and sword as one weapon before hefting it in one hand a few times then launching it like a discus. When it struck the next target along, the shield absolutely obliterated it, carrying on after barely slowing down to dent the wall behind it with an ear-burstingly loud crash. "Woah." Jaune breathed in surprise.

"Your weapons are far heavier than Pyrrha's, and for good reason. She is an agile and dextrous fighter. You...are more of a tank. If you tried even a tenth of the moves Pyrrha could pull out in a fight, you'd be on the floor faster than I could say 'strawberries'. You could pull them off with practice and strength, just like that-" She pointed at the shield, smirking as it clanged against the ground, having fallen out of the divot it dug. "-but you'd be better suited to finding better ways to defend yourself. Your entire motif is to be a tank. You have more aura than the entire rest of your team combined, you have body-armour, a large shield, and you have the will to defend those behind you." Planting a hand on his shoulder, Ruby shook him slightly. "Don't try to mimic her just because of the fact that what she has worked for her, because you have a totally different build." Patting him once then releasing him, she rolled her head to look around the room, sighing to herself.

"Cardin, try that move again, and The Executioner is going somewhere even Grimm would blanch at, sharp end first!"

* * *

"Ahh, Ruby, a little help here?"

Sighing, Ruby zipped over to Peach with her semblance, ignoring the dissolving petals to take some of the vials she was balancing on her arms with a frown. "Seriously Peach, you really have to carry two-dozen vials of this stuff at once? Do you not have a box of something to put 'em in?" Peach shrugged, warily waving her arm to keep one vial of red, viscous liquid balanced atop another.

Eyeing the wobbling glass vial carefully, Ruby reached up and grabbed it, putting it on her own pile. "Thank you Ruby. I would carry less at once, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. The students are going on a trip to collect Forever Fall sap soon so I need to use up all these old samples. In fact, I'm fairly certain at least a quarter of these armfuls were from the last time your team went out gathering just before graduation." Humming, Ruby looked at the vials on her arms.

Sure enough, on the marked little paper notes was, underneath the date gathered, the team signature proudly written. Thinking back, she vaguely remembered spending a night writing out those signatures on all the little stickers and putting them on their vials. The fact remained that by that point it'd become a competition between teams to not just get 4 jars per team, but instead get as many as humanly possible back to Beacon. One team even requisitioned their own private Bullhead to airlift out several hundred sap jars.

It was a shame, since at that point Goodwitch put her foot down and said that each team was allowed to collect no more than five jars per person, one for the team to have, whilst the other four would be handed in. "Good times..." She rubbed a thumb against the sticker, remembering one time how Violet had wagered her share of the tree-sap that she could suplex a Beowolf into a puddle of sap without getting any in her hair. She managed to pull the suplex off, but ended up literally upside down chest-deep in the sap, because Roux had sneakily dug the puddle way deeper than it appeared.

Watching Violet chase Roux around literally wielding a dazed Beowolf and swinging it about by the leg was quite honestly the most hilarious sight she'd ever seen, even better than that time she and Jay tried to get Goodwitch with a bunch of pink dye, but ended up making Ozpin look absolutely fabulous. Immortal Headmaster or not, that man could make anything work, even having his hair and face all dyed pink didn't phase him.

Turning her focus back towards Peach, she gave the professor a grin. "Some of them are. So...these have literally been sitting around for a year?" Peach, forgetting she had her arms full, tried to throw them upwards in exasperation, but quickly stopped herself and settled for a growling noise.

"Well, considering that stunt Team BLNT pulled with the bullhead they filled with sap, I had enough sitting in my storage room to fill a Mistralian Swimming Pool! Honestly, I can understand being competitive, but sending several thousand jars back...did you hear that one of them accidentally admitted that they literally paid a bunch of rookie hunters to sneak into the area, tap a bunch of trees then hide them so they could retrieve them and claim that they did it all?" Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Of course they did. I did wonder just how they got so many jars. So, they ended up cheating in the end?" Peach frowned and nodded. "Ugh, just kills the competition. Shame that Goodwitch doesn't let anyone gather more than 5 any more, those got really competitive really quickly. All started because two teams argued that they were more efficient at harvesting sap, then a few other teams, including ROVR, got mixed into it, and it snowballed so quickly..." Smiling softly, Ruby allowed herself a moment to reminisce on those days, often ending with at least one of the girls, very often Violet, covered in red tree sap and brawling with a Grimm or three.

"Ha, you don't have to remind me. I remember that day you all but dragged Olive and Roux into Beacon behind you." Snorting, Ruby recalled the event, at the same time as Peach spoke. "What was it, they thought trying to swim in sap was actually a good idea?" Wincing, she nodded.

"Yeah, I think Violet might have had a hand in convincing them, even if they never said as much. Honestly, Grimm-infested forest, and they thought swimming in a small pool of Grimm-attracting fluid which has a vaguely distracting effect, with aura mind you, was a good idea! What's funnier though is that they even wanted me to bloody well join them! I still remember Olive acting pretty much drunk off the sap and trying to kiss me!" Peach gave up and started laughing, trying to hold her vials with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. "The whole bullhead ride home as well!"

Peach's high-pitched laugh echoed through the room, with Ruby's joining her soon after.

* * *

"Oh shit-"

An echoing explosion blasted out of the room, sending Ruby crashing backwards through a table and then the door, finally coming to a stop half-embedded on the other side of the hallway. "Ow." Coughing a few times, Ruby extricated herself from the human-shaped hole her aura had smashed into the wall, rolling her arms and wincing. "Ahh shit." She muttered under her breath, brushing down her cloak to remove the fragments from the now-splintered door.

She wanted to try and infuse some of the dust she'd managed to obtain in Vale into a spare knife, the idea being that she could activate the dust, throw the knife, and after a few moments the dust would go critical and explode into a wave of force, bursting through several strategically-placed vents along the length of the weapon to create essentially a big ball of kinetic energy. Unfortunately, the crystal she was using was a bit too volatile, it went off with just a slight brush of aura. It had to be strong enough to create a good impact, but not too strong that it ripped the weapon apart. Unfortunately, to get a good balance was really damn hard.

She wanted to use a crystal because unlike with powdered dust, a crystal could be regulated to release only a certain amount of charge. Powdered dust would just burn itself all up at once, making it a single-use weapon, then having to be refilled. With a crystal, as long as it was high-density and well-regulated, she could use the gravity-pulse at least a few dozen times before the charge wore out and she'd have to get the crystal recharged, or if she wanted to save lien she could just replace the crystal entirely.

It was far cheaper to get a new crystal after all, since actually recharging a drained crystal was extremely difficult, expensive, and volatile. After a few recharges the crystal would hold far less energy and would go off at the drop of a hat, which is what had just happened to her despite assurances that the crystal would be perfectly stable. Huffing, she plucked out a shard of wood and tossed it to the side, ignoring the staring students as she strode back into the room and picked up the now-dead crystal.

When it went off, it burnt all its energy in one fell swoop, throwing all loose objects around the room. Being used to taking hits, Ruby had her aura up and ready the instant she saw the crystal start going critical, so she was already prepared for it then exploding, and she easily redirected the thermal energy which was generated as a by-product. Didn't help that it had so much force that the blast, well, blasted her off her feet and across the room. Shame about the table which was now split into two dozen pieces across the room, but she could just replace it.

What was most infuriating for Ruby however was the fact that that crystal was not, in fact, a freshly-mined one, but a refilled crystal. A newly-cut crystal which hadn't been used would have never gone off like that, but one that had been recharged a few times would act just as that crystal did. Fortunately enough the drop in potential energy stopped the crystal from obliterating the workbench it was on, but it was still extremely infuriating.

Throwing the crystal into a container which had been tossed on the floor, Ruby also grabbed her bag and left the room, ignoring the gawping students in favour of striding down the hallway, quickly flicking her scroll out and sending a message to Glynda that one of the labs got damaged in an experiment and needed to be repaired. She put it away again without looking to see if Glynda had even seen the message.

She had a dealer to punch.

* * *

"LAXER!"

The aforementioned man ducked as a knife came flying at him, yelping as he then got dragged over his counter by the collar. "Ahh, Miss Rose, a pleasure to see you." He spoke eloquently, completely at odds with his position in the arms of an elite huntress. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Ruby tightened her grasp, choking the man slightly.

"Oh gee, I don't know, maybe that the gravity crystal you sold me was a re-charged piece of junk?" The man's face hardened instantly, his brow furrowing. He waved Ruby's hands off his collar, straightening his clothes for a moment after he slipped back off the counter, then pulled out a ledger from under his counter.

"Let's see, let's see. Ahh, G-273012-C, mined, cut and transported from the Schnee Felris mines seventeen days ago. That crystal should have been pristine." Laxer peered up at Ruby from his ledger, looking her over closely and making a noise in his throat when she glared at him. "Well now, this means we have a problem..." The crystal seller entered the back-room, the sounds of cardboard being pulled open and plastic rummaging around audible through the open door. Humming to herself, Ruby swayed on her heels. While she didn't really like the man too much on account of selling her a faulty crystal, she knew he wouldn't try to flee from a huntress who was well known for her speed above all else.

He gave back in holding several metal-grey coloured crystals, laying them out on the glass. "Lemme guess, all these are crystals from the same place?" Laxer nodded in agreement. Lifting one up whilst carefully holding her aura way from that hand, Ruby tipped the diminutive little crystal one way then the other, frowning. "It looks pretty normal to me, it doesn't have any signs of being a recharged crystal..." Placing it back down, she looked up at Laxer. "Well, want to give me one so I can test it? Because I have a pretty feeling that all these crystals are re-charged."

The man shuffled three towards her, pushing the rest back into the box. "Take those three, test them in the room downstairs, and we'll see whether or not these are faulty crystals." Nodding once, Ruby used her semblance to disappear, smirking as the man ranted about her leaving rose petals everywhere. Sure, they disappeared on their own, but it still left a mess whilst they were in existence. Hearing the man clambering downstairs after her, Ruby held one crystal out in the palm of her hand, the other two safely hidden away in her pouch, before pulsing a tiny amount of aura into her hand.

Immediately the crystal began glowing, getting brighter and brighter as it released more and more energy. Holding onto it for a few more moments, Ruby tossed it away at the moment where it was teetering on critical, making it release its energy in mid-air as to not damage the building. Sighing, Ruby took out the other two crystals, and repeated the experiment, for the exact same result. The crystals were definitely recharged ones, they took a fraction of aura to set off, and they would ramp up their energy output swiftly, then hit a critical point and expel all of their energy in a single instant.

The weird part was that Ruby couldn't figure out why the hell someone would do that. Recharged crystals were expensive to produce, more expensive than just buying freshly-cut crystals. It was designed for weapons which couldn't replace their energy crystals easily, making it worth the cost so they didn't tear their own weapons apart every time the crystal was drained. Selling them to a dust-shop was just stupid, it'd cost more to recharge the crystal than you'd get back for selling the damn thing. "So Laxer, where'd you get these from?"

"That's just the thing Miss Rose, these came in with a Schnee shipment." Blinking, Ruby stared at him. She must have heard that wrong. "These crystals came in with a freighter about a week ago, signed and sealed since they were sent out from the mines they came from." Palming her chin, Ruby stared at the wall in thought. Snapping her fingers, she looked at Laxer with a grin, something which made the man wince as he knew the huntress had a probably-stupid and dangerous plan in mind.

"When's the next freighter coming in?"

* * *

**Short, and a bit boring, I know, sorry boos.**

**Next chapter should be quite exciting though, Ruby starts digging into a conspiracy involving the SDC, so evidently Weiss and Blake are going to end up mixed in somehow, dragging Russet and Yang into it through osmosis or some sciencey-sounding words. Hope you guys are enjoying this, and maybe you could check out some of my other stories if you want more to read!**


	18. Chapter 18

**I'll fully admit it...I hit a massive slump with this story.**

**Between constantly getting stuck for what exactly to write, as well as work and War Dog taking up all my time, this and all my other stuff got thrown o nthe backburner to be chipped away at.**

**Well, I can't say it's great, but, well hope it was worth the wait.**

**_Chapter 18_**

* * *

"I swear, this brothers-damned paperwork grows every moment I look away."

Giggling lightly, Ruby couldn't help but jab at the esteemed headmaster as she burst into his office. "Oh, chin up Oz, at least you have Glynda to help give you more." The man eyed her over his thermos carefully, his eyes flickering to the door where Glynda would enter from. "Oh, she waits until you turn around to pensively look over Vale, then BOOM!" Her sudden voice-jump managed to make him raise an eyebrow. "She levitates in whole folders of papers to sign off on! I should know, I caught her doing it to me!"

Ozpin shook his head. "Miss Rose, might you have a reason to interrupt my...valuable time?" Ruby shrugged, waving a hand about as she spoke.

"Eh, maybe? I mean, you heard how I blew up that laboratory right?" Ozpin grimaced, his eyes flicking to a certain folder of insurance drivel and damages. "Well, I realized that crystal couldn't have reacted like that unless it was recharged, so I paid the guy I bought it from a visit. Lo and behold, his whole stock was recharged without him knowing. So now I maybe kinda sorta need your permission to go out and find out what happened?" She asked more than said by the end. "I should have just gone anyway, shouldn't I?"

Ozpin smirked. "Quite. I shall inform Qrow of this development, and you are to-" He didn't get a chance to order Ruby not to do anything, as she zipped away using her semblance, a faint 'la la, can't hear you' audible as she fled. Sighing, he sipped his drink, turning to look over the City with old, weary eyes.

"Just like her father, always leaping into things."

* * *

"I already told you, Torchwick's been clean ever since you stopped him."

Ruby rolled her eyes, her hand wrapped around her drink as she stared at Junior. "And I'm telling you that someone's been messing around with the dust shipments coming into Vale. I know that the VNN already did a report on several Hunters who got blown up by their own dust. That kinda thing is a catalyst for fear if people can't even trust their own dust. People are going to be afraid to even turn on their damn microwave for fear the dust inside will detonate. The guards will stop trusting the dust they use for the defences along the City walls. And I don't have to tell you what fear will bring."

Junior shook his head at Ruby, absently wiping down a glass. "No, you don't. Look, I've already got my ear down to the ground, and I've heard nothing. You really think I wouldn't give you that information? I know you, 'Bloody Rose'. I know you'd pay well to find out what the hell is going on so you could stop it. And I'm telling you that I have no damn idea who is doing it. Besides, it's more likely this stuff happens over in Atlas, so when they ship it over, it's already screwed." Ruby growled, downing the last of her drink, then sliding a lien card across the counter into Junior's waiting hand, just enough to cover her drink.

As she got up, she jabbed a finger at him. "If you hear anything of who is causing this, or where I can find them, you get that message to me first, or I'll break your balls. Got that?" She clenched a fist for emphasis. Credit to him, Junior just sighed and waved her away. He wasn't an easy man to intimidate for sure, but he definitely didn't look as comfortable as he did when she came in, glancing down at least once.

Throwing her cloak around her shoulders, she tipped the hood up over her hair and left the building, her hands visibly away from her weapons. Of course, that didn't matter, since her Semblance would let her snatch them in the blink of an eye, but it was the thought that counted. She just wished she wasn't so...forward with her Semblance in the past, since it meant pretty much anyone with a scroll could find her tournament matches and learn what her Semblance was, then plan around it.

Until she buried her knife in their skull anyway, since no amount of planning would win if she could still get to them and break their aura.

* * *

Ruby stretched her arms out with a yawn, absent-mindedly swinging her legs from side to side as she stared at the train tracks below her.

Junior had come through, sending her a map of this area and a timestamp, along with the message of 'This is us even now, don't come back without more lien.', which was his way of saying 'Stay the fuck away, got that?' It wasn't her fault she scared away practically all of his more...unsavoury patrons.

She quickly checked her weaponry for the fifth time. She'd left Crescent Rose behind this time, since she wasn't expecting any Grimm to slash down, only human-sized targets, which meant she was left with Crimson Harvest, the collective name for her sword and dagger combo.

Was it unimaginative? Sure. Did it matter? No. People who watched her tournament fights would be expecting her to be using a scythe, something that a skilled fighter could counter. So, when she suddenly drew out her dagger and sword, they'd be on the back-foot even further than expected.

Ruby shook her head, slapping at her cheeks to stay focused on the train-tracks, having heard the faint but unmistakable sound of an oncoming train a few moments ago. She did her final checks, tightened her cloak, then, just as the train slipped into the tunnel, dropped off the platform she was sat on, free-falling onto the train. She rolled to ease herself into the momentum of the train, taking a swift glance around as she drew her weapons.

She was on one of the forward carriages. According to Junior's intel, the shipment the saboteurs planned to switch was on a carriage near the front of the train, only a few carriages back from her current location.

Since the tunnel was too shallow to allow her to safely walk along the roof of the train, she settled for simply heading straight through the carriages. But, as soon as she opened the door, she blinked in surprise. The person on the other side of the door looked back at her in equal surprise. "What the fuck are you doing here?" Of course no plan of hers could go right, considering the man she'd run into.

"Making sure you don't get your ass kicked squirt." Qrow shot back, raising Harbinger to his shoulder. "I see you didn't bring your grass-cutter along this time." Growling, Ruby pointed a finger at Qrow's face.

"I'll have you know that Crescent Rose is not just a grass-cutter...she can also cut trees down." Ruby didn't even bother trying to test Qrow, the man had an absurd amount of patience, and he'd always find a way to keep going if she tried to argue, so it was best to just go with it. "So, Junior?" The Branwen nodded, waltzing back into the carriage he'd just vacated.

"Yeah, he told me right after he told you, squaring off two of his debts with me for it." Though it was annoying, it was technically not violating what Ruby had demanded. She'd been told first, but Qrow had been told straight after. Despite herself, Ruby smirked. In his own way Junior was looking out for her.

Sure, he was just protecting his own interests, since Ruby was very handy if he ever needed to take care of something involving another criminal, but it was still nice. "Well, let's get moving then, I want to catch these fucks and make 'em pay for ruining my hair. Don't even fucking say it." She stopped Qrow from saying anything about her hair. Sure, it looked fine, but the point was that at the time, it was frazzled.

According to Junior, what was suspected of happening was that during transit, the legitimate dust crystals were being swapped out with cases of 'fake' crystals. The only opportunity for the swap to occur was during transit, and the most likely point of transit for a theft was during this stretch of railway, as it had several rarely-patrolled forest trails to drive in and out of the area, which meant swapping out boxes would be a cinch.

They just had to stop them. "So, did Oz send you?" The dark-haired man just gave her a look. "What, it's not like he's got a great track record for trusting me to do crap on my own." Folding his arms, Qrow turned to look at Ruby with a cocked eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe I let Cinder get away, and okay, so I got gutted by a shard of metal, but hey, I'm fine!" Ruby flexed her arms for emphasis.

Qrow gave her a once over, turning away with a snort. "You know, Winter was actually in Vale last week on a...'mission'. She still plans to drag you back to that bar for a round two." Slumping over, Ruby followed after Qrow with a frown, perking up at the mention of Weiss's sister.

"Wait, seriously? She still holding a grudge about that, that was ages ago! I mean, I might have rubbed that win in a little too much, but still!" Qrow just shook his head, wrenching open the door to the next car along and raising his arm to let her through first. "Oh, such a gentleman, letting the lady check for traps or ambushes first." She traipsed past him, drawing Crimson Harvest as her eyes flicked from side to side, quickly declaring the room as empty, aside from maybe an invisible assailant.

Neo was still around after all, not that she'd do anything to make Torchwick's sentence longer than the two years he'd been slapped with. But it did mean there were always those who could have a similar semblance. The pair made their way quickly down the train, until a few cars later they heard the tell-tale sounds of people moving around. Since the train was only supposed to have a driver and then a bunch of mechanical guards, that was a dead give-away. "Get those fucking crates shifted, now!"

Qrow's eyes widened, leaning against the door to listen as the voice commanded their minions around. "Wait a minute, that's one of...what the hell is he doing swapping dust out like this?" Narrowing her eyes at Qrow, Ruby silently demanded he explain. "When you took down the Red Fangs, of course, you couldn't get them all, so Oz sent me to clean up any who slipped past you. That one is one of those who slipped past me. I dunno why the hell they'd be-no, Ruby, don't!"

Ruby ignored him, enhancing her leg with Aura then smashing her foot through the door, sending the metal projectile hurtling across the train car, crushing a box of dust as it flew through the air like a missile. Several very surprised red-masked figures all turned to look at the door, just in time to see Ruby disappear into a flash of petals, her dagger immediately finding the throat of the nearest Red Fang member. "Damn it Ruby!" Qrow yelled, though Ruby didn't pay him any mind, wrenching her dagger out of her target's throat and nearly decapitating him.

She flicked the dagger, her eyes flickering around the room, counting numbers, assessing weapons, then settling o nthe best course of action...butcher the lot of them. As she burst into petals, she spotted the only unmasked figure, a tall guy with a single sword and buckler, his eyes narrowed at her. Raising the tip of his weapon towards her cloud of petals then triggering a compartment to open, he forced her to redirect her course, re-appearing from petals to cut the head off another Red Fang too slow to avoid her attack.

Feeling the blood splatter across her cloak, she growled, lowering her stance then kicking off the ground, using her Semblance intermittently to avoid the tip of his weapon as she hurriedly closed the distance, only to wince and dart to the side when his weapon fired, a large ball of lightning being fired which managed to catch her a little, locking her body up for a few seconds.

She managed to roll enough to avoid his follow-up strike, regaining control over her nervous system and scrabbling back onto her feet, hearing Qrow engaging the other Red Fang in combat. Not giving her time to plan an attack, he began firing more lightning balls out of his weapon, then swapping the crystal in his weapon out while she was held back by a literal wall of lightning, now unleashing a stream of flames which he swept from left to right.

Deciding not to follow convention, Ruby forced herself upwards, tiring her out a little but getting her over his flames. She then became corporeal again and hurtled down towards him, plowing her sword down only to be deflected by his buckler, then being matched when his own sword was parried by her dagger, leaving him open enough for Ruby to pivot into a knee-first dropkick, slamming him backwards as she somersaulted to land on her feet while he sprawled. "Is this it? This is the strongest member of the Red Fang? To think, you guys used to be what kept me awake at night, and now? You're a joke."

Normally Ruby wouldn't taunt her opponents, but this one held a personal edge to her. Plus, from the fact his teeth were gritted, his eyes narrowing furiously, she'd really managed to piss him off. Dangerous, sure, but it could open great opportunities. She was therefore ready when, with an enraged cry, he blasted forwards, his buckler ready to slam forwards, either to hit her or to block her attack.

Ruby didn't allow either thing to happen, using her Semblance to push entirely past him, re-emerge, then slam her sword backwards, the dangerous attack taking a hefty chunk of his aura to block, as it was aimed right at his heart, scraping up his aura until it would have pierced his throat. As he rolled forwards and turned, she sprinted after him, using her dagger to guide his sword-swing, then swinging herself to the side and smashing down on the wrist holding his buckler as he tried to shield-bash her, making him drop it.

With a quick kick she sent the buckler out of reach, grinning despite herself as he flexed his hand, then took a two-handed stance. With the buckler, he stood a good chance of countering her attacks, but now? Now she could really hurt him. Unfortunately, as she prepared to bolt forwards, Qrow chose that moment to break into their fight ,his scythe hooking around her enemies neck and wrenching brutally, his neck snapping from the sheer impact. After all, it didn't matter how much aura you had if your neck was twisted 90 degrees in the blink of an eye.

Frowning, Ruby put her hands on her hips. "I had him!"

* * *

**I'm sorry this took so long boos, I just totally lost my muse for this story.**

**War Dog is just...well, two things. Firstly, it's nearing its end, I don't want to slow down now so close to finishing. Then between that, brainstorming new Universes for Akar to go to...this and all my other stories hit the backburner in a major way.**

**But today I forced myself to just sit down, finish this chapter, so that way I could upload it on the 6th, as the One-Year-Anniversary! Happy Birthday to Watching Rose (This is only happening to this story because this was my first story, sorry Crimson Dovah)**

**And yes, this isn't a very long chapter, sorry. I just, as I said, lost my interest in this story, sawwy.**


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